A bluefin tuna was sold for 36.04 million yen -- around $273,000 -- at the first auction of the year at Tokyo's Toyosu fish market. The price of the 212-kilogram fish was more than double that of the most expensive fish at last year's New Year's auction: a 211-kilogram fish that sold for 16.88 million yen -- at that time worth $145,000. Both fish were caught off the coast of the town of Oma in Aomori prefecture. This year's auction began at 5:10 a.m. on January 5, and around 230 tuna were sold in just 15 minutes. Seafood wholesaler Yamayuki bought this year's most expensive fish for the sushi restaurant Ginza Onodera. The tuna was served to the restaurant's customers later that same day. This is the third year in a row that Yamayuki has bought the most expensive tuna. However, prices had fallen in recent years as the restaurant industry suffered during the coronavirus pandemic. Yamayuki's president Yukitaka Yamaguchi told The Yomiuri Shimbun that the increased price this year "is good news that symbolizes the gradual recovery from the pandemic." This year's top price was the sixth highest since records began being kept in 1999. The highest price recorded was at the New Year's auction in 2019 -- just after Tokyo's fish market moved from Tsukiji to Toyosu. At that auction, a 278-kilogram fish was sold for 333.6 million yen -- at that time $3 million -- to Kiyomura Corp., whose owner, Kiyoshi Kimura, runs the Sushi Zanmai restaurant chain.