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Tthe dish of the day has the appearance and consistency of a steak. But the article of the menu at Nisshin Maru in Shimonoseki, it’s not brisket or fish eye—it’s a premium part of the restaurant’s specialty: whale meat.
Every few minutes, the chefs in the open kitchen prepare another plate of cetacean delicacies – raw sashimi smeared with fat, slices of “bacon”, roasted minke whale, cut into bite-sized pieces and served with a selection of dipping sauces. On a warm weekday evening, every table is full.
A short walk away, the outline of the Kangei Maru dominates the shoreline. Completed earlier this year at a cost of ¥7.5 billion ($47.4 million), the Kangei Maru replaces the aging Nisshin Maru, a whaling “mother ship” that rose to prominence during the Japanese Navy’s frequent collisions with environmental activists in the dangerous waters of Antarctica. Such vessels allow for harpooning whales to be flangedprocessed and stored.
In May, the Kangei Maru and its 100-strong crew will leave Shimonoseki and begin an eight-month expedition off the northeast coast, Japan’s first voyage the first new ship of its kind for more than 70 years.
The new vessel’s 13,000 km range is fueling suspicion that five years after Japan abandoned its controversial “scientific” hunting in the Southern Ocean and resumed commercial whaling off its own coast, Japan is once again preparing to slaughter the mammals far from its own shores.
In the new vessel, the whaling industry envisions an era of prosperity and growing demand, ultimately securing the future of the most controversial ingredient in Japan’s culinary repertoire. The 9,300-tonne vessel, equipped with a halyard capable of towing 70-tonne whales, can store up to 600 tonnes of meat at a time, allowing it to remain at sea for long periods.
Last year, whalers caught 83 minke whales, 187 minke whales and 25 sei whales in Japan’s exclusive economic zone, but appetite for the delicacy is at historic lows. Between 1,000 and 2,000 tonnes of whale meat are consumed in Japan annually – less than 1% of the 230,000 tonnes eaten at the industry’s peak in 1962, according to the fisheries agency.
“Some people in the industry thought that going back to commercial whaling would lower prices, but in fact the prices are higher and the catch is much smaller, with fewer whale species, than it was when Japan was fishing in the Southern Ocean,” said Mitsuhiro Kishimoto, professor in the Faculty of Economics at Shimonoseki City University.
“The connection between Shimonoseki and whaling is far from broken, but whale meat is too expensive. The price should be lower because if future generations don’t eat whale meat, the industry will die.
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned commercial whaling in 1986, but allowed Japan to continue to hunt small numbers of whales in the Antarctic each year for “research” purposes.
In 2014, the international court ordered a stop the post-hunting expeditions were not conducted, as Japan claimed, for scientific research. Four years later, Japan pulled by IWC and announced that it would end Antarctic hunting but resume commercial whaling in it coastal waters.
Despite leaving the IWC, Japan “has not given up” on resuming whaling in the Antarctic, according to Ren Yabuki, director of the environmental and animal protection group Life Investigation Agency.
“That’s why they built the Kangei Maru, which is equipped for whaling in the Antarctic Ocean,” Yabuki said. “I believe it is possible that whales will be killed there again, regardless of the opinion of the international community.” This is what Japan is preparing to do.
The ship’s owner, Kyodo Senpaku, denied the claim. “We have left the IWC and so it is not being considered at this stage,” said spokesman Konomu Kubo. “The government has not indicated that whaling in the Southern Ocean is in its plans and our mission is to use the new vessel to carry out commercial coastal whaling for at least the next 30 years.”
Taxpayers are footing part of the bill for the Kangei Maru, with the city of Shimonoseki a center of Japan for decades whaling industry – contributing ¥300 million. The rest is in loans that Kyodo Senpaku will take decades to repay as it struggles to revive Japan’s heavily subsidized whaling industry amid plummeting demand.
Jun Tezuka, director of the Shimonoseki municipal government’s whaling industry promotion office, said the launch of the Kangei Maru was a “dream come true.”
“When Japan started commercial whaling again, the fleet left that port and that was a big thing for the town,” he said. “It also meant that people could start eating chilled meat caught off the coast instead of frozen meat from the Southern Ocean. And we were able to be more ambitious in promoting whale meat.”
The city of Shimonoseki serves 100,000 whale meat lunches a year to elementary and middle schools — the equivalent of five servings per child — and is home to several specialty whale meat restaurants and about 100 others that feature the dish on their menus. Whale meat burgers are sold at university cultural festivals and chefs are trying to come up with new ways to cook its meat. Last year, Kyodo Senpaku opened its doors whale meat vending machines in Tokyo, Yokohama and Osaka to boost sales, and says it plans to open in about 100 more locations.
But the Kangei Maru’s huge price tag means prices are unlikely to drop anytime soon. “We want as many people as possible to eat whale meat, but we also need to make a profit to pay off the loan for the Kangei Maru and get commercial whaling back on track,” Kubo said.
At the city’s Karato morning market, groups of tourists from China, South Korea and Taiwan flock to stalls selling freshly made sushi but show little interest in whale meat, a vital source of protein in post-World War II Japan.
Koji Yoshida, a seafood vendor from Karato, said eating whale meat is a “generational thing”, admitting he struggles to sell his wares to people under a certain age. “But if the Kangei Maru can bring back good whale meat – not the stringy, cheapest parts we’ve been using in schools – then we can show the kids how good it really is.”
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