In the sterile, neon-lit theater of the Toyosu fish market, the human species has once again performed its favorite ritual: placing a staggering price tag on a dying miracle of evolution. Kiyoshi Kimura, the self-anointed ‘Tuna King’ and head of the Sushizanmai empire, has dropped 510.3 million yen—approximately £2.4 million—on a single 243kg giant bluefin tuna. For those keeping track of the absurdity, that is nearly £10,000 per kilogram for a creature that was, until very recently, a majestic apex predator of the deep, and is now a very expensive, very cold slab of marketing material.

This is not a story about the culinary arts, nor is it a story about the ‘vibrant traditions’ of Japanese commerce. It is a story about the terminal stage of a civilization that knows the price of everything and the value of absolutely nothing. To call Kimura a ‘king’ is an insult to the fish; he is a merchant of the macabre, presiding over a New Year’s auction that serves as a yearly reminder that as long as there is a camera crew and a press release involved, no price is too high for a slice of fleeting relevance.

Kimura’s justification for this financial hemorrhage is particularly galling. He claims he wants the economy to ‘get better this year.’ It is the classic capitalist delusion: the belief that overpaying for a resource you are systematically depleting will somehow stimulate the general welfare. He went further, invoking the Takaichi administration’s pledge to ‘work, work, work,’ promising that his sushi chain would match that fervor. One must wonder what this ‘work’ actually entails. For the Takaichi administration, it is the standard nationalist performance of revitalizing a stagnant economy through sheer force of rhetoric. For Kimura, it means selling more slices of endangered sea-life to people who are fundamentally bored with their own existence. It is a feedback loop of pointless exertion.

Sanae Takaichi, the figurehead Kimura is so eager to please, represents the ‘Right’ in this equation—a brand of conservatism that views the natural world as a warehouse and human beings as batteries to be drained in the service of the GDP. Meanwhile, the ‘Left’ will undoubtedly offer its performative gasps about overfishing while tucking into a ‘sustainable’ sushi roll that is anything but. Both sides of the political aisle are equally complicit in the fantasy that we can continue this level of consumption indefinitely. The bluefin tuna is not just a fish; it is a biological marvel, a warm-blooded athlete of the ocean capable of crossing basins at speeds that would make an Olympian weep. We have reduced this masterpiece to a billionaire’s vanity project.

Let us analyze the sheer stupidity of the ‘work, work, work’ mantra. In a world where productivity has decoupled from reality, Kimura’s pledge is a threat, not a promise. It suggests a future of even more frantic extraction, more late-night shifts at the sushi counter, and more desperate attempts to prop up a currency that is increasingly divorced from the health of the planet. The Toyosu market itself is a metaphor for this transition: a clean, industrial, soul-sucking upgrade from the gritty, authentic chaos of the old Tsukiji market. It is the perfect stage for a £2.4 million transaction that feels as empty as the pockets of the workers Kimura claims to be helping.

There is something profoundly pathetic about the way we celebrate these record-breaking auctions. We are cheering for the ‘Tuna King’ as he buys the last of the silver from a sinking ship. The economy will not ‘get better’ because a man overpaid for a fish; the economy is a hallucination we all agree to maintain so we don’t have to face the fact that we are working ourselves into an early grave to afford the very things we are destroying. Kimura gets his headline, the Takaichi administration gets its hollow endorsement, and the rest of us get to watch the slow-motion collapse of the ocean, one record-breaking auction at a time. It is a spectacle of the highest order, and we are all, unfortunately, paying the cover charge.