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It's not every day that we encounter a friendship that feels like it's straight out of a Disney movie. Hiroyuki Arakawa, a Japanese diver, has started diving when he was 18 years old. Now, at the age of 79, he's still diving, and along the way, he has made one very special friend.
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Yoriko is an Asian sheepshead wrasse - a giant fish with a human-like face and a large forehead. She first met Arakawa 30 years ago when he was part of a construction crew of an underwater Shinto temple gate 56 feet beneath the surface of Japan’s Tateyama Bay.
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Yoriko lives by the shrine's gate, and one day, when Arakawa was diving, he noticed that she looked strange. She was injured and exhausted,unable to catch food for herself. Arakawa, who already had a certain fondness for the giant fish, couldn't let her waste away. So, for the following 10 days, he hand-fed her 5 crabs a day - until she got better.
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Although fish are not an animal we often think of as intelligent, clearly, Yoriko remembered the kindness that Arakawa showed her. Because ever since that day, she has bonded with him just as much as he had bonded with her. She lets Arakawa touch her, she's playful with Arakawa, and a viral video of her cutely bothering Arakawa while he works is how we came across their story in the first place.
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“I’d say we understand each other,” Arakawa said in an interview for Great Big Story, talking about his bond with Yoriko, “not that we talk to each other… I kissed her once. I’m the only person she’ll let do it.” He explained that saving her life all those years ago is something that he's really proud of.
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“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 she knows that I saved her… that I helped when she was badly injured. So for me to be able to do that, I am proud,” Arakawa explains. “I have an amazing sense of accomplishment in my heart.”
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