eel

When it comes to fish and eel meat, “fresh” is the favorite for pretty much anyone. But how fresh is “too fresh?” Well, how do you feel about buying eel with a beating heart?!

Japanese Twitter user @iwasi_nu was shopping for eel at an Akita branch of supermarket chain Itoku the other day when he noticed something…unusual. As you can see in the video below, the heart in the package of sliced up yatsume unagi (Norther lamprey) was apparently…still beating. What kind of horrifying, late Halloween story is this?!

[tweet https://twitter.com/iwasi_nu/status/662124823556952064 align=center]

Now, to be fair, we’re not 100 percent sure this is the heart. We suppose it could be a twitching muscle or other organ, but the Twitter user did explicitly call it the heart and it kind of seems to match the photos in this paper we found on eel liver functions.

However, as unsettling as we might find it, the reaction of most of the Japanese commenters who’ve see the video has been more of envy than of disgust. One Twitter user replied to the original tweet saying they were planning to go to the same supermarket that night—and seemed pretty happy about it! Another wrote, “It’s so fresh! Awesome!” One comment read: “It’s got great vitality. It’ll be delicious if you fry it with some salt. I used to be able to catch them in the past, but they’re quite rare now. I’m so jealous!” Another Twitter commenters suggested eating the eel meat in some nabe.

Not everyone shared the good feeling though. One Twitter user seemed to have the same reaction we did, remaking: “Fish are scary creatures.”

That said, we do have to admit that it does seem to be some extremely fresh eel. In fact, since it was also produced in Akita, @iwasi_nu basically has access to eel straight out of the water! We probably wouldn’t even mind having a piece ourselves…if we could get images of their horrifying mouths out of our heads!

▼ NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE.

[tweet https://twitter.com/daichi_todo/status/662646896490512385 align=center]

Sources: Togech, Twitter/@iwasi_nu
Top image: Twitter/@iwasi_nu