Japanese Shusse-uo: Fish That Change Their Names as They Grow

The core idea: a name that works like a job title

In an office, the same person may be a new recruit, then a section chief, then a department head. The title tells you where they stand. Shusse-uo (出世魚) work the same way. Shusse means rising in the world, and the custom copies an old practice: until the Edo period, samurai and scholars took a new name when they came of age and again on promotion, so a fish that changed its name as it grew was said to be getting promoted.

So when a fishmonger says kore wa inada desu, the answer to what is it is really the answer to how big is it. The questions and replies below come from a stall at a morning market, where a visitor is pointing at a tray of silver-blue fish.

The buri ladder: Kantō, Kansai and Hokuriku names

Buri (鰤), the Japanese amberjack or yellowtail, is the textbook shusse-uo. Read a row of the diagram from left to right and the fish grows; read down a column and you have the same size under three local titles. The middle rungs change from place to place, but every row ends at buri, the adult of about 80 centimetres or more.

The size boundaries are approximate and sources disagree by ten centimetres or so. Names vary well beyond these three rows: parts of Shikoku and Kyushu say yazu, and Wakayama, although it is in Kansai, often uses the Kantō names.

UnihongoVocabulary

これは何なにという魚さかなですか。What is this fish called?

At the fish counter: hamachi, buri and the word yōshoku

In a supermarket the ladder meets a second rule. Japan's food labelling standard requires fresh fish to show yōshoku (養殖), farmed, when the fish was farmed, and kaitō (解凍), thawed, when it was frozen and defrosted. Tennen (天然), wild, is not required, but shops print it proudly because wild fish sells for more.

In the trade, farmed yellowtail is often sold as hamachi whatever its size, and buri, especially in winter, suggests a wild adult. The habit is loose: you will also see yōshoku buri. Kanburi (寒鰤), literally cold-season buri, is wild buri caught in midwinter, when it is fattest. Shopping phrases and discount stickers have their own guides; the diagram reads only the fish.

UnihongoVocabulary

これは天然てんねんですか、養殖ようしょくですか。Is this wild or farmed?

Suzuki, bora and kohada: the other promotion fish

Buri is the famous one, but the same logic runs through several fish. Suzuki (鱸), the Japanese sea bass, climbs from seigo to fukko to suzuki in Kantō, with hane instead of fukko in Kansai. Bora (鯔), the grey mullet, runs from oboko or subashiri to ina, bora and finally todo. Kohada, the silver-skinned sushi topping, is a middle stage of konoshiro, which starts as shinko. Sushi shapes themselves have a separate guide.

The adult name is usually the species' standard name, which is why dictionaries list the sea bass as suzuki, never seigo. The other rungs are unstandardised trade and local names.

Beyond the basics: todo no tsumari and other words from the ladder

A few rungs have climbed out of the fish market into everyday Japanese. The best known is todo no tsumari. Todo is the last name a bora can reach, so the phrase points to the end of the ladder: after all the stages, this is where things finished. It means in the end, and it usually introduces a disappointing or deflating result.

Inase (鯔背), dashing in a streetwise Edo way, is said to come from a hairstyle worn by young men at the Nihonbashi fish market, tied to look like the back of an ina. Here a friend sums up a weekend over coffee.

Why promotion fish are eaten at celebrations

Japanese celebrations lean on engi (縁起), good omens in names and sounds; tai, sea bream, is festive because it echoes medetai, joyful. A fish that rises through the ranks is a natural wish for rising in life, so shusse-uo appear at graduations, new jobs and promotions.

Buri's big moment is New Year. From Toyama through Kansai and across western Japan it is the year-end fish and goes into osechi and ozōni; much of eastern Japan uses salmon instead. At a promotion party, a colleague might say the following.

Counting fish: hiki, bi, hon, kire, saku and kan

The counter follows the form the fish is in, the same logic as the names: a whole fish, a slice and a piece of sushi are counted differently even when all of them are buri.

Hiki changes its sound: ippiki, nihiki, sanbiki, roppiki. Mi-kire uses the old native number mi, though san-kire is also heard. Filleting uses a counter too: sanmai ni orosu, literally to take down into three flat pieces, gives two fillets and the backbone.

Spoken reality: who uses which name

Anglers and fishmongers use the full local ladder. Many city shoppers know only buri and hamachi, plus one middle name from where they grew up, such as inada in Tokyo. Nobody expects a visitor to know every rung.

On menus, conveyor-belt sushi chains usually list hamachi, while izakaya boards in winter prefer buri or kanburi. Labels mix hiragana and katakana, ぶり and ブリ, and the kanji 鰤 appears on handwritten menus. At a sushi counter it sounds like this.

Common mistakes with fish that change names

Treating hamachi and buri as two different fish. Menus abroad often list them separately, so learners assume two species. They are one fish at different sizes, or farmed versus wild.

Using your textbook's ladder everywhere. A learner who studied in Tokyo asks for inada in Osaka and gets a puzzled look, because the middle names are regional. Ask for the local name instead: kochira de wa nan to iimasu ka.

Mixing up mejiro with similar words. Mejiro is also the Japanese white-eye, a small green bird, and it sounds close to mebaru, a completely different rockfish. On a fish label, mejiro next to buri or hamachi means yellowtail.

Counting slices with hiki. Buri o sanbiki kudasai asks for three whole fish. For fillet slices say mi-kire, and for sashimi blocks, saku.

Using todo no tsumari for a happy ending. Because the phrase usually precedes a letdown, listeners may hear irony. Use kekkyoku instead.