Japanese Twitter Immediately Turns the Kraken Into a Recipe Debate

What's going on

Someone from the English-speaking side of the internet made an observation: the first instinct Japanese people have when they see the Kraken — the legendary ship-swallowing sea monster of Norse folklore — isn't fear or awe. It's to size it up as seafood.

That one line was all it took. A long thread of Japanese replies immediately set out to prove the point, cheerfully debating whether the Kraken would taste closer to squid or octopus, how you'd need to prep something that size (salt it down first? simmer it in ginger and sake to kill the smell?), and whether it would even be worth trying as sashimi. A surprising number of people brought real seafood-industry knowledge to the table, treating a mythical monster like a legitimate, if oversized, catch of the day.

Part of what makes the joke land is that it's not entirely divorced from reality — real giant squid, hauled up from the deep sea every so often, have genuinely prompted this exact "is it edible, and does it taste good" conversation in Japan before. The thread just picks up where that conversation always leaves off, with the Kraken standing in for its real-world cousin.