Testicles and tentacles: Seamen show their derring-do by doing the denizens of the deep
Taro Makeburu, a stage comedian, used to be a fisherman. A resident of the Izu Islands, he enrolled in a public high school whose curriculum, understandably, offered numerous subjects related to oceanography.
Magazine columnist Kureichi Matsuzawa has long been a fan of Makeburu's humorous fish stories, which, Matsuzawa notes, can't get too raunchy or personal when he's performing in public as they might alienate the audience.
But get him in private and, well, you wind up reeling in something a bit bestial.
We're not talking about legends of making it with mesmerizing mermaids, but something that's the genuine thing. Like manta rays.
"Almost everybody in the fishing business has had sex with a manta at some point," Makeburu asserts.
What!!! A manta??? You mean one of those enormous, intimidating winged things with a stinger on their tail that looks like an aquatic Batman?
Yep. After all, fisherman out on ships spend a loooonggg time at sea without ever encountering a woman, and, well, let's face it, they can get pretty horny. No, dammit, let's make that incredibly horny. Even desperate enough to do it with a manta. Right?
"Nah," shrugs Makeburu. "Coastal fishermen poke them too."
Apparently it's a ritual of manhood, done out of recognition of the dangers of life on the sea.
Before mounting one of these intimidating creatures, points out J.K. special, it is "absolutely essential" that its stinger be removed. Yes, that certainly would make sense.
And of course, there's the matter of protocol. To wit, the ship's captain, if he so chooses, is entitled to go first.
Is your mind suitably boggled? No? Ready for some more?
"A manta's ... thing is kind of similar to a human's," Makeburu says.