Incredible Video Shows the Bond Between a Diver and the Fish He Had Been Visiting for 30 Years

As long as life is throbbing in their hearts, any two creatures can be friends, irrespective of whether they’re of the same species or not. Take, for instance, the case of Hasama Underwater Park in Tateyama Bay, Japan, whose plotline would perfectly fit a Disney-Pixar movie. Deep beneath the surface of the bay, a fish named Yoriko swims in bliss. A knocking sound coming from a piece of metal interrupts his calm and he immediately speeds over. The sound is a sign that his best friend has come to visit him and he must greet him with a kiss. He allows none but only him to kiss his mouth, as he said in a video shared by Great Big Story (@GreatBigStory).

His name is Hiroyuki Arakawa, a scuba diver who first met Yoriko more than three decades ago. They instantly developed an unbreakable connection and ever since they’ve been meeting each other every few days. Arakawa had been diving ever since he was 18 years old. He first bumped into Yoriko while he was supervising the construction of the gate of an underwater temple called “torii” nearly 56 feet beneath the surface of the bay.

Like a gatekeeper of the Shinto shrine, Yoriko, an Asian sheepshead wrasse (kobudai in Japanese), was swimming around the gate, on the carpet of rainbow-hued coral reefs. The diver felt connected to the fish. He extended his arm and gently brushed the bulbous forehead of the fish. “It just happened naturally,” Arakawa said in the interview with the Great Big Story (GBS).

“I’d say we understand each other, not that we talk to each other… I kissed him once. I’m the only person he’ll let do it. When you look really close, you’ll think [he] looks like someone you know,” Arakawa told GBS. He joked that Yoriko and Arakawa were “UWBFFs (underwater best friends forever).” "This reminds me of my 2-year-old toddler when I'm making her a snack,” said @cardboard0G on X in a comment on another footage of the duo’s interaction, shared by @universoviral. @alieonalien said, "I struggle to touch fish underwater. This guy just shoves a big fish like 'Gimme some space!'" During one of his dives, Arakawa discovered that Yoriko had a bad injury in his mouth, and so he couldn’t scour food for himself. He approached him for help.

Remarkably enough, the fish greeted him just as always despite his injury. Reciprocating his love, Arakawa dedicated the next ten days to becoming a caretaker for Yoriko. Near the temple gate, he hammered and cracked open a crab, and hand-fed its meat to Yoriko for the entire duration. The unlikely decades-long friendship is a stark illustration that proves that “there's no greater bond than the one between man and fish.”  “I’m not sure if it’s the nature of the kobudai or not. It’s probably because there is a sense of trust between us. I guess he knows that I saved him… that I helped when he was badly injured. So for me to be able to do that, I am proud,” Arakawa told GBS and added, “I have an amazing sense of accomplishment in my heart.”