In spring they come in close to the shore of the bay to spawn. They rise through the water at night, and the set nets take them just before dawn. The season runs from February to about May, and outside those months there is nothing to catch.

The animal is covered in light organs — seven hundred to a thousand of them, over the whole body except the fins — and they put out blue and green. In April and May, along the Toyama coast, the squid are sometimes washed up onto the sand still glowing, in numbers. The local word for that translates as the squid throwing themselves in.

What happens in the kitchen is considerably less dramatic. They are boiled, and then the eyes and the small piece of cartilage at the mouth are pulled out with the fingers, one squid at a time, because anything left in there will catch between your teeth. Then they are dressed in vinegared miso.

This stretch of sea was made a national natural monument in 1922 and raised to special status in 1952. The wording of the designation is worth noticing: what is protected is not the squid but the surface of the water they gather under. The country decided to protect a place on the grounds of what happens there once a year.