Fish! A Japanese Obsession

MELODIC CHANTING

I'm Charles Rangeley-Wilson.

I am a writer and a fisherman.

I travel to fish, and fishing is my passport

to a different view of things, to people and places I'd never see without it.

And fishing has pulled me here, Japan.

A whole country obsessed by fish.

An island nation, like Britain, where it is impossible to be far from the sea.

The Japanese treasure fish.

They exploit fish.

They revere fish.

For the next six weeks, I'll be travelling on trains, planes,

buses and boats, from Tokyo to the farthest corners of this mysterious impenetrable country.

And perhaps, because their passion is also mine, I'll discover a different side to Japan.

I have arrived in Tokyo.

But, going beyond the guidebook, finding the fishy places I'm after

will not be easy in a country that is to most outsiders so closed off, so private.

I'll need more than fish - I'll need a companion, a guide.

Out of a city of more than 10 million, only five people answered the ad.

Hisachi, a wannabe rock star...

-How are you?

-You are Charles?

-I am Charles, yes.

-Ah, wow.

Meiko, a student from Vancouver...

Very nice to see you.

Tatsuya, a car battery salesman...

Koide-san, an underemployed humanities graduate...

And Yuya, who just missed out on being picked for the Japanese Olympic horse riding team.

Five lucky candidates, only one position.

Wow.

It's first time job interview I think.

-It is?

-Yes.

-OK.

Well, we'll treat you very kindly.

-I hope so.

-I just want to learn a bit more and find out about you.

I and my hobby, now my hobby is fishing and playing basketball, and playing the guitar.

-I

-like to eat fishing, and not very much for the fishing.

I do fishing once a year, not so often.

Fish.

I like fish.

Um.

Well. Fish.

Only fish, or fish creature?

Anything. Fish, fish creatures but also Japan.

-Japan and people.

-Japan people?

And customs.

But there was one candidate who, like me, seemed misplaced, out of water.

He had been held at knifepoint in Colombia, taken tours in the Lebanon, been a truck driver.

He was edgy, compelling.

Here is Aki.

Maybe you are, I think maybe you are interested in...

night club business in Japan, no?

Aki is 36 years old, and he is the man who I hope can show me Japan from the outside, and the inside.

If fish are everywhere on the Japanese menu, Aki

tells me some places capture the obsession more obviously than others.

Our first stop is a themed family restaurant in the Japanese manner.

Here, it's a mock fishing boat afloat in a blue pool that also contains our supper.

Everything from shellfish to sharks.

If we can catch it, we can eat it.

So, we are having a snapper. If we can catch one.

This is unreal!

Hey, good man.

Aki, you are a fishing star.

'He only fishes once a year, and he's beaten me to it.'

I got snapper.

Aki, what can I say?

You are more of a fisherman than I am.

Well done. OK.

So now they're going to cook it for you, yeah?

THEY SHOUT AND CHEER IN JAPANESE

It wasn't enough to catch our supper, we have to sing for it too.

We have entered Planet Weird, Aki.

That is just about the strangest thing I've ever seen.

-WAITER SPEAKS IN JAPANESE

-Aha.

Oh, it's sushi. I thought they were going to...

I thought they were going to grill it. Sushi...

Shit, it moved.

Still breathing since it arrived.

That's, that's...

OK, I - I meant sashimi, but they are live.

It's weird. It's not, it's not...

Hit it on the head. It seems to me a little cruel.

-Yeah, cruel.

-To take the flesh off the fish while it's still alive.

I... It's...

You look very... philosophical.

Just do it, just eat,

forget about the complicated thing.

This is Japan.

Forget about your country. Just eat it. Enjoy it.

Of course. When in... when in Rome, as they say.

Yes.

This dish is not unusual.

For Aki and the diners around us, there is a conflict between the

apparent suffering of fish, and the eating experience.

In the West, we like to get as far away as possible from the idea that our meal was once alive.

In Japan, they celebrate it.

It's a rude awakening, but freshness is everything in Japan.

Unsurprising in a hot crowded country, completely dependent on the ocean for its protein.

Japan's 120 million people, 1/50th of the world's population, eat 1/10th of its fish.

Vast amounts of marine life,

and most of it comes here.

Tsukiji,

Tokyo's fish market.

It's before dawn, but Tsukiji is wide awake.

I'm not. I'm keyed up on cheap coffee and looking for Edesan,

a man who trades in the king of fish, bluefin tuna.

Bloody hell.

So many fish.

'I'm overwhelmed by the body count.

'By the sheer number of tuna in here.'

Hello. I think we...

OK, apparently these guys are the bluefin.

The king of tuna.

One of the world's most expensive fish, one of the world's most endangered fish.

-Endangered?

-Yeah.

There aren't too many of these left.

And, er, what they're buying, is not so much fish, as scarcity.

And the fewer there of these things,

the more the price goes up.

Edesan's family have been tuna traders for more than 100 years.

Very long face. I haven't actually had a word with him yet.

He's looking at his big bluefin.

Torch in the belly.

Oh, he's knocking the ice out of it.

'He has a lifetime's experience, but only a few seconds to check

'each fish for fat content, for colour, texture.

'All the qualities that combine to make the perfect tuna flavour.'

AUCTIONEER CALLS OUT IN JAPANESE

BELL RINGS

It looks like our man got his fish.

'A blizzard of grunts and bells, the auction is over in minutes and Edesan

'has bought the largest wild bluefin in the market.'

Back at his stall, Edesan's team has to work quickly to get the fish ready for Tokyo's top restaurants.

He's come in to check his purchase.

Every slice and cut is critical, precise.

Tuna like this is as close as fish comes to beef.

I wonder if this explains their obsession with it.

In a country with so little pasture land, the tuna is their eight-ounce rib eye.

If it's not a cheeky question, can I ask what you bid for these big fish?

Per kilo? That works out at over £15,000.

It's like a circus. It's on the Tokyo tourist circuit.

It's not the scarcity of these fish, it's the value.

And the more valuable they are, the more fascinated we become.

It's that tens of thousands figure,

but ironically the scarcer they become the more valuable they get, and the more

we come to gawp

at this incredible phenomenon.

I wonder what will be selling here in 50 years' time.

That's what I wonder about,

will there be bluefin for sale

in this fish market?

Edesan is no-nonsense.

Ruthless in the execution of his work. Economical with his words.

But he's not the only one.

There's no Billingsgate banter here, just men and women working hard.

As there are all over Tokyo, the hardest working city of all.

But in the midst of all this industry, Aki tells me

there is an oasis of fishy calm were stressed-out salarymen go to unwind.

-This is our platform. This is our platform?

-Yes. Number 13. To Ichigaya.

Fishing centre.

TANNOY: The doors on the right side will open.

Ah, there it is. Ichigaya.

Ichigaya is both a fishing pond and a train station.

Is anybody here? Here she is.

Could she explain how it works and what fish we'll be catching?

OK, so we catch as many fish as we can, to amass points.

And if we get seven points, then we can stay for another hour?

That's just like an arcade game,

you reach the total...

But all the fish go back at the end.

Let's get stuck in.

What sort of people come here, are these businessmen or students or...?

What are they looking for? What's the pleasure that they're finding?

There's no wild nature here, and not much sky, either.

But it is still an escape.

People come here to space out, looking at a float.

And it's everyone...

Teenagers on dates, retired old men, office workers.

I'm kinda seeing what they mean.

I'm thinking about nothing.

I'm think about how when you just stare at a float like that,

it does wash the mind clean.

It's like, it's like putting a computer to sleep.

You know, the sleep mode?

Bring it into the net!

'Once again, Aki's beginner's luck has put him on the scoreboard.'

It's big, yeah.

You've caught yourself a fish, Aki.

You've got, you're on the points board.

What do you think the fish think of all this?

The life span is very short.

The fish are stressed out like the people who come to catch them?

I have to admit, I'm ambivalent about this fish arcade.

But I can see its place, its function.

Any respite in this storm of a city.

30,000 Japanese commit suicide every year, often because they're stressed and overworked.

I hope the stressed-out fish of Ichigaya are stopping that number from rising higher.

Tokyo is a congested and expensive place, and privacy is a rare commodity.

Smells of disinfectant.

It's almost a function rather than a hotel, I think.

Let's open the window.

Strict morality and paper-thin walls have conspired to make sex for the

young and adulterous a difficult proposition.

Hotels are more than just places to sleep.

Aki tells me you can even rent a room like this by the hour.

Tell me about love hotels.

It's a hotel just for having sex.

Who with? Girlfriends?

-Or prostitutes?

-Whatever, whoever you want.

Whoever you want!?

It looks like all the programmes on offer are wall-to-wall pornography.

You're taking me round the seedier side of Japanese life.

Ominously, Aki's been doing research on the internet all day long.

And he's being very secretive about it.

Just tell me what that call was all about.

I have a...

a little something for you tonight.

Special gift.

That's it, is it? Oh well.

It's definitely not a ladyboy, then.

Or a lady. Or is it a video?

Oh, my God!

That's enormous.

'To my huge relief, what I thought might be internet porn turns out to be internet prawn.'

This one's still going!

OK.

That looks like a dead shrimp to me.

How do you eat the thing?

-Can you hear?

-I can hear something.

It's crying.

-What?!

-It's crying!

What do you mean, crying?

He's crying because he knows his destiny.

Really, he's crying.

'After my freak-out with the live sashimi, Aki is messing with my head.'

Prawn has emotions.

If prawn has emotions, why are we eating it like this?

How did you order these things?

-On the web.

-On the web?

Do you want me to have a go?

Are you sure this is how you eat them?

You don't cook them?

You tuck into this one...

What do you think? To me that's quite an intense experience.

We better have them cooked by chef.

I think the best destination for those is a pot.

The prawns may have needed cooking, but what Japan is all about is raw fish.

And they take that passion to some extraordinary lengths.

Before leaving Tokyo, we've come to suburban Chiba district

to meet the world's only tuna tribute band, Gyoko.

By day, humble fish merchants.

By night, tuna rockers.

-Are you the drummer?

-Keyboard.

And sampling.

-You're the singer?

-Yes, and the...

Sword.

Singer and sword? Just the two of you?

-Who else?

-Deep sea.

That's his name? What does he do?

Guitar.

The third guy is standing behind me, but he's not standing behind me

because he's actually deep under the sea?

Good stuff!

-You've got a tee shirt!

-Gyoko is great!

-Looks good.

Power. In soul.

One moment Tzurizao is in a fishmonger's apron, the next he's

swimming free as his alter ego, captain of the Gyoko submarine.

I'm watching a rock musician become a tuna become an eco-warrior.

It's a very surreal show.

But there's more to Gyoko than just being kooky.

As young people abandon fresh fish for convenience food, Gyoko use music to turn them around.

Gyoko is making a stand.

It's a good message, but a mixed one.

Not wasting fish is great to hear, but I'm not hearing anything about

the problems of overfishing, about the fish running out.

Leaving Tokyo far behind us, we're taking the bullet train north

through the mountains to the city of Ojiya,

and the Niigata district on the north-west coast.

It's here that water, soil and climate combine to make the most

perfect place on earth for creating moving, living works of art.

200 years ago, so the legend goes, an emperor gazing into a pond

fell in love with the sublime movements and beauty of a red fish...

the koi carp.

Mano-san is a top koi breeder...

Or an art dealer, depending on how you look at it.

But his art is ephemeral.

It will one day fade and die.

Today, I'm helping him collect some of the most valuable koi

in the world from their summer residence in the hills.

They're so valuable that every fish must be accounted for.

How much are they worth, each one fish?

100,000? OK, we're having translation issues here.

And fish inflation, as we talk.

£50,000 per fish.

It you got 38 koi carp, how much would that be altogether?

38 times 50,000.

So that's about £1.7 million.

That's one hell of a lot of fish.

He's counting them.

Two fish missing?

We've got 38? So we've got them all. Thank God for that.

This would give the average koi fancier a serious heart attack.

Up in the mountains, the ponds could freeze.

Here, out the back of Mano-san's house, these carp will be pampered through the winter.

What kind of people come here to buy koi?

Ah, English. Koi.

Koi fanciers. Hi there.

-All right?

-Yeah.

You're koi enthusiasts?

-Koi mad.

-We've been trying to get inside the world of koi.

-Don't! 20 years of doing it. I wanna get out!

-Really?

-No, I love it.

-Is it addictive?

-Yeah. Oh, yeah.

-It is just a drug.

An obsession. You just get in...

I had a two-year break and it drove me mad.

Just had to dig out another pond. It's always been an ambition, to come here.

It's a bit of a pilgrimage here?

-It is.

-Definitely is, yeah. This is the Mecca of the koi world.

This is the icing on the cake. Once you've been to buy fish in Japan, there's nowhere further.

You've reached the peak.

Mano-san invites us to a local fish show, where he's a competitor and a judge.

Everywhere, there are koi carp in tanks, pools and buckets.

And a steady stream of koi groupies.

To my untrained eye, it's baffling.

Though I can see differences - a black spot here, a red spot there -

I can't see what makes one fish better than the next.

And there are prizes for fish in every size range.

SPEAKS IN JAPANESE

When judging begins, it is intense.

Serious.

Lot of clipboards.

Lot of deliberation.

So it's already decided? That's what they've been deliberating.

The grand champion is chosen.

To my surprise, I was falling under the koi spell.

There is something mesmerising about them.

A uniquely Japanese art form.

They don't challenge or ask questions.

They just are.

In Japan, the cities stretch out like seas of concrete

across any land that is flat enough to build on.

We're heading back south of Tokyo to Izu...

where the mountains begin.

The mountains give rise to clear, fast rivers.

In many of them is a fish that, to the Japanese, marks the seasons as clearly as falling leaves or snow.

The ayu.

It's very good to eat.

In late summer, the ayu, a tiny salmon, swarm on their spawning run.

And fishermen swarm to catch them.

Fishermen like Suzuki-san and Wada-san, a publishing magnate and a dentist.

The ayu feeds by grazing algae from the rocks in the stream,

which makes it impossible to catch with a baited hook.

Long ago, the Japanese developed a bizarre solution to this fishy conundrum.

Tomo-zuri.

That word means, literally, fishing with friends,

the friend in this case being an ayu.

One fish, used to catch another.

Wada-san explains the technique.

The trick is to gently steer your ayu friend into another ayu's territory.

The resident ayu attacks and gets foul-hooked.

It's all about understanding how the fish wants to swim.

That's the art.

Oh, yes! Yes.

We have one!

Success!

Nice catchie!

The bottom one has attacked the top one and got caught.

This is how they do it.

'I guess I'm ambivalent about using live fish as bait.

'But tomo-zuri is redeemed in that all these fish are caught for food.

'And the meal that follows is as important as the fishing itself.'

Mm. Good, eh?

That's good!

Salty.

Very like a trout.

Oishi yo.

What is so compelling about this fishing for you?

They might dress like mad bikers from a crazy future,

but the ritual of ayu is actually an echo of a rural past.

All along the river, like so many samurai herons, wealthy, middle-aged men are keeping that past alive.

The ayu is so revered as food, fetching £200 a kilo,

that centuries ago, the Emperor appointed a team of fishermen to catch them.

Over 1,000 years later, they are still doing it.

These fishermen also burn the torch of tradition.

Without rod, line or net, they fish by firelight and have been

working the Nagara River for over 1,300 years.

Gifu is a modern city of half a million.

It has grown around a small fishing village that, even today, gives the city its identity.

'Sugiyama-san is an imperial cormorant master.' I'm Charles.

I am cormorant fish master Masahiko Sugiyama.

Like 14 generations of his ancestors before him, Sugiyama-san works exclusively for the Emperor,

harnessing the best fisher of all - the cormorant - to catch ayu for the highest table in Japan.

Fishing on the Nagara River has a long history.

Over 1,300 years.

By attaching a line to the bird and placing a ring around its gullet, he is able to prevent the cormorant

from swallowing any fish it catches underwater.

One cormorant can catch about 60 fish per hour.

HE WHISTLES Very good fisher!

The birds naturally pair themselves for life.

Each day, Sugiyama-san selects the pairs that will fish that evening.

Ey!

That one does not want to get out of the pond.

Done. Do you ever make a mistake and put the wrong pair in?

-Seldom.

-Seldom.

But if you did, they would have a big...argument.

Yes, yes.

-To death.

-To death?

-Yes.

-Really?

-Yes!

The ones who stay will be fed.

The others are kept hungry.

-Before fishing.

-Look at the size of this thing.

Ah.

Down it goes. Whoa!

Just like dropping them down a drainpipe.

'The title of cormorant master is passed from father to son.

'It's a lifetime commitment.

'Though it's a highly-respected tradition, it's also an obligation.'

Have you always wanted to

be the cormorant master?

Be a what... cormorant master?

Was it something you always wanted to do?

What do you do all winter? You're nearly at the end of the season.

You don't go fishing, I don't suppose?

In the fishing season, I relax.

Sometimes play golf.

-Golf?

-Yes.

And I love rock music. Red Zeppelin!

Led Zeppelin!

-What's your favourite Led Zep song?

-Whole Lotta Love.

Whole Lotta Love! Yes!

Da-dun da-dun dah!

-Yes.

-Fantastic.

Fishing with cormorants is no longer commercially viable.

But as a tourist attraction, this repackaging of tradition is incredibly popular.

Gifu trades on the tradition of the cormorant master.

Every evening during the summer, tourist boats follow the cormorant masters

as they fish the Nagara River.

MUSIC: "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin

The cormorants have no fear of the fire, which is used to light

the shallow water and give them the advantage over the startled fish.

Like a giant puppet master, Sugiyama-san handles all 12 birds at once.

# Way, way down inside

# I'm gonna give you my love

# Gonna give you my love

# Gonna give you my love, sweet babe... #

In a carefully-choreographed finale, all the cormorant master

boats fan out across the river in a blaze of fire and noise.

It seems my fellow travellers can't get enough of this celebration of tradition.

I can just about see Sugiyama-san through the flash photography.

As the crowds gasp and clap, I wonder - is he a fisherman or a tourist attraction?

Either way, he isn't an economics professor.

His sacrifice seemed to me a perfect expression of the public and private faces of Japan.

So far on my journey, I've seen and spoken to very few Japanese women.

The historical stereotype is that they are demure and retiring.

That they very much have a supporting role.

But this isn't the whole truth.

We've come to Ise on the southern coast of Japan,

a vast bay of rich fishing grounds, opening onto the Pacific Ocean.

Here, it is not men who do the fishing, but women.

Breath-hold diving for pearls, abalone, urchins and lobsters.

These are the ama, or sea ladies.

The place feels like a Cornish fishing village.

Until a rusty tannoy announces the location for today's diving.

TANNOY ANNOUNCEMENT IN JAPANESE

Within minutes, the sea ladies arrive, togged up and ready to fish.

I'm going along to see how they work.

The fishing here is strictly managed and shared throughout the community.

Ah! Ah! Ya!

We head out along the coast, in search of turban shells.

Some sea ladies swim out from the shore.

Others, like Shigeko-san, go out with their husbands, who work the boat on the surface.

The ama say that it works this way round

because women carry more subcutaneous fat than men,

and in a cold sea, stay warmer for longer.

It looks seriously hardcore.

They're like seals. And it's not just that they're managing it once.

They're going down again and again and again.

I bet it keeps them fit.

It's funny seeing the husband there, in the boat,

chugging around, while his missus is sent never-endingly

to the bottom of the sea to come up with more shells.

Impressive.

She's down a long time now.

That's got to be about a minute.

Here she comes.

OK. Here goes nothing.

'Aki and I jump in to have a go.'

It's quite clear.

Aki, how deep is it?

-What?

-How deep is it?

Five metres.

Five metres. It looks pretty...

Pretty serious to me.

'It's incredibly hard work.

'They make it look easy.'

'It takes Aki three dives to get one shell.'

Wa-hey!

Back on shore, the sea ladies sort their catch.

The average age of a sea lady today is mid-fifties.

Some keep on diving into their seventies.

CHATTER

Work over, the ladies relax around a fire in their hut

and cook themselves a late breakfast, fresh from the sea.

It's a really lovely atmosphere, full of warmth and banter.

Can you tell me why ladies make better divers?

Hell's Grannies takes on a whole new meaning at Ise,

where these strong, confident women

are making the most of a biological superiority.

Everything I've learned so far about the Japanese and fish

is how they celebrate freshness.

But at Lake Biwa, 400 kilometres north-west of Ise,

I've been told that the sushi is far from fresh.

Funasushi originated here, beside Japan's largest freshwater lake,

and is said to be the precursor of the sushi I know and love.

We're meeting local entrepreneur Masayoshi Tanaka,

otherwise known as 'Shacho' - the boss.

TANAKA SPEAKS JAPANESE

Shacho is a one-man marketing storm for funasushi,

which is the opposite of fresh.

It's actually fermented fish.

This tough selling proposition ought not leave him much spare time,

but somehow he finds it.

And when he's not selling funasushi,

he's producing videos and music for local companies.

We're hoping Shacho will tell us about funasushi.

But it's obvious from the start

that we've met a man with strong ideas on how to do things.

OK.

OK, so...

That's good, excellent. That's going very well.

In the cut-throat world of funasushi marketing,

there are no lie-ins, and Shacho has us up at the crack of dawn.

He wants us to see the entire process from start to finish

and he's hired a local fisherman to show us stage one -

catching the fish.

OK.

OK.

With our freshly caught carp

we moved to an island in the middle of the lake,

a sleepy little place that seems to be entirely populated by pensioners.

We arrive at a tiny house where Shacho has told us

we will see stage two of the funasushi story.

The fish are scaled, cleaned, sorted,

and packed in a bucket.

The next ingredient is rice.

Do we need to say anything about the rice?

Good.

'What Shacho meant to say is that the rice grown in this field

'is packed with the salted fish and left to ferment for six months.'

Shacho has arranged for us to visit an old lady to try a funasushi she made earlier.

'As it turns out, this old lady is his mother.

'But he thinks it better for our audience if he pretends not to know her.'

'This is the rice the fish has fermented in.'

'It smells like a music festival Portaloo after a hot weekender.'

Oh, yeah!

-Good?

-Very good, good, good.

Six months old.

'This mummified fish that has fermented in rice for half a year

'and looks like it might kill my dog is actually a delicacy.'

That is a brave section.

No, no, no.

No.

He has to go.

Aki, that wasn't a good advert.

But Shacho, the ever-resourceful director and restless artist,

feels we still don't have a killer sequence.

Something to really sell the story of funasushi to a British audience.

A few phone calls later and we are off to shoot

what he insists will be a climactic end to the story.

'That's me in the panda suit.

'Aki is the tiger.'

-Do you want to fly?

-Do I want to fly?

Of course I do! Come on.

Let's go. I just don't know why.

Change. Change.

Let me change.

You're in the driving seat now.

I can't see anything in this frigging suit.

Shacho is made in Japan.

It looks like he's enjoying it, the flight.

I still have no idea what a flying panda or a waving tiger

have to do with funasushi.

But in Shacho's world,

when you burst out of the box of ordinary life

and on to the box that is the telly, you do it in style.

That evening we head south to Taiji,

the centre of Japan's infamous whaling industry.

In the face of international condemnation, the Japanese

continue to hunt whales for what they describe as research purposes.

ANNOUNCEMENT Five minutes left.

Five minutes.

OK, we're nearly there. Whaleville.

Aki, some people where I come from think it's terrible to eat whale.

I want to know what you think.

Whale?

Whale.

I prefer to eat dolphin.

-There's a festival going on in Taiji.

A festival in praise of the whale.

The Japanese have none of our emotional attachment

to the whale as a mammal. To them, it's just another fish.

There's a huge queue!

'From the Second World War until the mid-1980s,

'Japanese children were fed protein-rich whale meat at school.

'And going by the length of the queue at the barbecue, they liked it.'

It's a hectic old queue.

'Aki is keen for me to get a taste of his childhood.'

Right, this is what you want me to try?

This is the smell I remember

when I was a kid.

-From school?

-Yeah.

OK, here goes for a bit of whale.

Nothing wrong with that.

It's OK.

But I... I never expected it to taste not OK.

I always thought it would be all right.

-It's quite like beef, isn't it?

-I told you it's good.

Tasty. Delicious.

For me, that's not the point.

What's the point? What's the point?

The point is it's a big, rare mammal

and it's very hard to kill it quickly.

'There is a gulf between Aki and me.'

'He can't see my point of view and I'm having difficulty with his.'

Quite nice.

'It seems wrong to be hunting some of the rarest animals on the planet

'in the name of... a childhood nostalgia?

'But talking to the people at the festival,

'it's clear it's not so simple.'

'These people are carved out of whaling. It is their identity.

'And it is difficult to condemn the identity of a whole community.'

'But I'm still haunted by that astonishing body count

'of bluefin tuna at the fish market back in Tokyo.'

'In the last 30 years, stocks of wild bluefin have plummeted by 90%.'

Oh, my God.

'This fish is heading for extinction, too.'

'But unlike in Taiji, here at the Marine Biology Department of Kinki University in Ashima,

'a few hours' drive away, scientists are busy working on a solution.

'Here they have established the world's only successful captive breeding project for bluefin tuna.

'It is an incredible feat.

'Tuna are the muscle cars of the ocean,

'fast-swimming predators that will cross the Atlantic and back in a matter of weeks.'

Tuna - wow! Look at that!

'Professor Hidemi Kumai has spent the greater part of his life

'unravelling the secrets of the bluefin.'

'He's battled for years with eggs that wouldn't hatch, with fry that died for no reason.

'With adolescent fish that killed themselves against the glass walls of their tanks.

'Until, finally, he reared adult bluefin from the egg.'

Professor Kumai's treasure died 13 years ago.

Things have improved since then.

The mature bluefin are kept in vast circular pens in the bay.

We're heading out for feeding time.

In this cage there are 40 fish.

Wow - look at that!

Tokihiko Okada is also here to harvest a tuna

to help fund work at the university.

Each fish is worth more than £3,000.

An electrical charge stops the fish in its tracks.

Look at the size of that fish!

Oh, my God!

Oh, wow!

'Three blows to the head stun this leviathan

'so it can be winched aboard.'

Holy smoke!

WINCH CREAKS

Oh, my God!

'The last thing you want is a fish weighing 200 kilos

'thrashing about on the deck, so they make sure it's dead.'

So they put a hole straight into the brain, there?

Right, down into the spine? Oh, my God, it's grisly stuff.

Wow! This has turned from a very sort of silent thing

into a grisly theatre in about ten seconds flat.

The gills are coming out,

so they wanna get the blood out of it as quickly as possible.

The sunlight is very hot, so we have to keep it... Make it...

-As soon as possible, make it cool.

-OK.

Five grand's worth of tuna in the ice chest!

Five minutes from tank to ice chest.

Unreal.

'Farmed bluefin sashimi

'might well represent a lifeline for the wild bluefin,

'but given it takes 100 kilos of mackerel

'to produce 10 kilos of farmed tuna,

'it's not exactly a sustainable use of the ocean.

'Shouldn't we just be eating the mackerel?'

The bluefin is one of a triumvirate of iconic fish in Japan,

fish that shape the national identity.

The second is the koi carp, the third is the fugu.

Shimonoseki is on the far western coast of Japan.

It's the historic centre of the country's fugu industry.

It's two in the morning at the Shimonoseki fish market.

A fugu is a puffer fish. When threatened,

puffers defend themselves by sucking water into their stomachs

until they are completely spherical.

'Hisashi Matsumura is a fugu trader of more than 30 years' experience.'

Good morning.

I'm Charles.

Very early, as well.

This is fascinating, seeing this large-scale operation going on.

Can you tell me about the fascination with fugu?

-Number one!

-Number one?

Very good.

'There are many different types of fugu.'

Touch?

It's OK?

Yeah, very shiny.

Oh, I see. It's completely smooth. Completely smooth.

'The auction for fugu

'is conducted with secret hand gestures inside a sleeve,

'hiding the bids to ensure the best possible price.'

AUCTIONEER CHANTS

So this is the processing?

'Prized for its exquisite taste, fugu is as expensive as bluefin,

'but eating it unprepared can hit more than just your wallet.'

So, if I was to eat this now, what would it do to me?

Alongside its ability to inflate, the fugu has developed another,

less visible but far more potent, means of defence.

By eating other fish infected with a deadly strain of bacteria,

the fugu accumulates lethal toxins within its body, to which it is immune.

Once, the process of safely preparing fugu

was a secret closely guarded by individual restaurants.

People died when they tried, and didn't know how.

Now the myth has been rather dispelled.

It still takes three years to learn how to prepare fugu,

but it's become an industrial process.

Kenji Ito shows me how it's done.

It is another gruesome spectacle.

Oh, the eyes, too?

Fugu on the spin cycle! Is this gonna do something with the warranty on this machine?

Does the manufacturer know you're using it to wash fugus?

Made in Japan.

So it won't go wrong, yeah?

Even if you fill it full of poisonous fugu fish?

In Shiminoseki's top fugu restaurants, a meal for two

can cost in excess of £300.

If much of Japanese eating is ritualised, when it comes to fugu,

this reaches a new level.

Restaurant owner Takeshi Wada

introduces us to the fine etiquette of fugu dining.

I'd assumed that eating fugu was some macho rite of passage,

a dance with death being the principal pleasure.

And, indeed, for his Imperial safety, the Emperor of Japan

is forbidden from eating it.

But this is a world away from the macho.

It is instead culinary theatre.

The remains of one course flows into the next seamlessly,

a Russian doll of a meal, a course within a course within a course.

Contrary to what I thought,

the fact that it's poisonous seems irrelevant.

The reason why people like fugu so much is simply that it is delicious.

And this was the best meal I'd eaten in Japan.

The Japanese have always known that fugu can kill,

but 200 kilometres down the coast from Shimonoseki

is a town where the people ate fish they didn't know were poisonous.

On the southern coast of the island of Kyushu, Minimata is a small city

that gave its name to a disease.

For more than 30 years between 1932 and 1968, the Chisso Corporation

pumped a lethal industrial by-product, methylmercury,

into the waters of Minimata Bay.

Here, it accumulated in fish

and in the people and animals that ate those fish.

Villagers began to suffer what to them was a mysterious illness

which they called Dancing Cat Disease,

though to the outside world it became known as Minimata disease.

Symptoms ranged from numbness to insanity or paralysis.

More than 2,000 people died.

But it never was a disease - it was a poisoning,

something the Chisso Corporation denied for too long.

After 40 years, the bay is clean again.

We're going out with local fishermen Minoru and Hajime Sugimoto,

brothers from a family deeply affected by the poisoning.

Hajime-san remembers seeing the effects of the pollution.

They rendezvous with a spotter boat out in the bay

and set their net between them.

As we trawl, Hajime-san talked about the disaster

that tore apart this community, half of whom were fishermen,

half of whom worked at the factory

which had brought economic prosperity to this impoverished area.

Hajime-san said that far from doing any good,

the company used the compensation

to set one half of the community against the other.

Yeah, we've been towing this net now for a couple of hours.

Not for anything gigantic,

but for a fish about half an inch long.

It's like a giant tea bag.

Incred... That's incredible numbers.

-What are they called, again?

-Shiroko.

-Shiroko.

-Shiroko.

'These tiny fish are a ubiquitous snack in Japan,

'a sort of fishy peanut.

'They are washed, steamed and air-dried in the family's processing plant on the quay.

'But Minoru-san likes them wet.'

That's a big old mouthful. Straight in?

Mmm! Mmm...

That is pure sea, pure ocean.

Beautiful, very salty.

Having tasted the product of the rebirth of Minimata Bay,

we go to visit the brothers' father, Takeshi-san,

who is also a Minimata sufferer.

His wife, Eiko, died earlier this year from the effects of the poisoning.

She had spent her whole life campaigning for justice for Minimata victims,

but suffered a backlash from many who worked at the factory.

The Sugimotos broke a basic code of Japanese life, where the individual

is subordinate to the greater good of the community.

On the whole, those who were not fishermen in the town stayed silent.

The Sugimoto family were one of the few that went public.

In another strange riff on the surreal alter ego theme,

that I have seen before with Gyoko and Shacho,

Takeshi-san's sons Minoru and Hajime,

performing as the Yaoichi Brothers,

use comedy to offer a new, brighter image for the future.

To break the prejudice that still surrounds Minimata.

Perhaps because Takeshi-san and his wife and sons

have kicked against the restraints so dominant in Japanese society,

have had to bear their souls to the world to fight for justice,

they seem more accessible to me.

I feel as I near the end of my journey, that in Minimata,

I have met a group of people who have truly let me in.

Japan is famous for the longevity of its people

and it is in the tropical southern islands

that people live longer than anywhere else.

I've heard of a form of fishing down here in Okinawa,

practised mainly by men older even than the sea ladies,

that encapsulates a lot of what I have seen on my trip.

It is communal, collaborative and ritualised.

It's also meant to be a tropical paradise.

You promised me a tropical paradise.

What is this?

A typhoon.

36 hours after we arrived, the storm has abated.

HE SINGS

Far from the frantic metropolitan heart of Japan,

the island of Irabu-jima has a flavour of the Caribbean

or a tropical outer Hebrides.

'We've been told to assemble at the harbour at three in the morning.

'A team of half a dozen boats piled with nets

'and rows of bright battered scuba tanks await their owners.'

'One by one, the fishermen arrive and sit quietly on the quay

'in monastic contemplation.

'Their average age is 55,

'but some are in their seventies.'

This is the most enigmatic fishing operation.

They are all sitting around on crates

and then suddenly, some completely unspoken gesture,

they all stood in uniform to launch the boats.

'The sky lightens, the weather looks good.

The sea has been rough for days and 'the fishermen need a good haul

'to make up for the time they have lost.'

What is the secret? How come you guys defy ageing?

'A short distance offshore and in the lee of the island,

'it looks like we have found a good place.

'Spotters hang off the side of the boats

'looking for shoals of fish that are working along the edge of the reef.'

'Suddenly it is hectic.

'All around, the fishermen are chucking out nets or grabbing tanks and plunging into the water.'

'They take the nets down to the bottom and arrange them in great hanging curtains

'that will funnel the fish as they swim up from the depths.'

On the surface, the launchers are dragging the nets into position.

The drive can start as deep as 30 or 40 metres.

There is no hanging around.

The divers have to move quickly before the shoal of fish moves on.

Aki and I wait above the nets

and long before we see the drive hunters, we hear them.

The clack-clack of their sticks and the shimmying sounds of bells

as they drive the fish towards their nets.

A curtain of bubbles turns the blue ocean into the sky at night.

And ahead of the divers, a sparkling shoal of fish.

The divers drop their pom-pom sticks

and begin to lift the net around the trapped shoal.

This is more like underwater ballet than fishing.

It is spectacular.

And in the midst of the show, a giant shoal of sea creatures.

As the shoal of gurukan fish reach the surface,

they perform one last act in the moment of their deaths.

They change colour from grey to bright fiery red.

These guys are fishing like this six days a week, diving to...

..serious depths several times a day so they have enough fish to make it worthwhile.

They're a fit crowd, they really are.

More impressive than the catch is the age of these guys -

never mind the old man of the sea, these are the old men of the sea.

it is amazing how this lifestyle keeps them so fit and keen for life.

'This fishing is not laid on for crowds.

'It is not self-consciously pastoral or brutally industrial

'and yet it is also so very Japanese.

'It is tick-tock efficiency and order and co-ordination.

'The co-operative community who never seem to argue,

'the ritual of it, the intricacy of it,

'but also, this is subsistence fishing on a scale the ocean can cope with.'

On the way back, we eat some of the catch.

Sashimi with a little rice vinegar and a handful of boiled rice.

The elixir of eternal life perhaps?

It is a beautiful way to end my journey

in search of the Japanese and their fish.

Aki, have you enjoyed your trip?

Yes, I did enjoy your company very much.

I enjoyed yours too.

HE SINGS "UNCHAINED MELODY"

It has been an amazing ride, this six-week journey through Japan.

I came looking for a window into the Japanese world

and I suppose I am leaving,

knowing that window has a curtain over it that is hard to pull back.

But with Aki and my crazy passion for all things fish,

I think I got a glimpse inside.

I have seen the public and the private faces of Japan.

Their reticence and then their warmth.

Their surreal humour,

their repressed sorrow.

I have seen how they are so very different,

but how they are also, in the end, just like us.

-Thanks a lot.

-I hope you enjoyed Japan.

-I did.

-Hopefully you understood

-some of Japanese things.

-I did.

Thanks a lot. I'll be seeing you.

-I will see you somewhere in the world.

-Cheers.

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