A single fish sells for nearly three-quarters of a million dollars - crazy sushi lovers!

[The Choonies]

It's superb. I can do nothing but smile. I am very happy,' says person who ate some of the prized tuna bluefin tuna caught off northeastern Japan fetched a record 56.49 million yen, or about $736,000, Thursday in the first auction of the year at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market.

The price for the 593-pound tuna beat last year's record of 32.49 million yen or about $416,000. The price translates to $1,238 per pound — also a record, said Yutaka Hasegawa, a Tsukiji market official.

10,000 pieces
The winning bidder, Kiyoshi Kimura, president of Kiyomura Co., which operates the Sushi-Zanmai restaurant chain, said he wanted to give Japan a boost after last year's devastating tsunami.

The fish was divided into 10,000 pieces and sold off at ordinary prices.

"Japan has been through a lot the last year due to the disaster," a beaming Kimura told AP Television News. "Japan needs to hang in there. So I tried hard myself and ended up buying the most expensive one."

Bluefin tuna is prized for its tender red meat. The best slices of fatty bluefin — called "o-toro" here — can sell for 2,000 yen ($24) per piece at tony Tokyo sushi bars.

 

Japanese eat 80 percent of the Atlantic and Pacific bluefins caught — the most sought-after by sushi lovers.

Japanese fishermen, however, face growing calls for tighter fishing rules amid declining tuna stocks worldwide.

In November 2010, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas voted to cut the bluefin fishing quota in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean by about 4 percent, from 13,500 to 12,900 metric tons annually.

Environmental groups want to see bluefin fishing slashed or suspended.