"We release the manta's that we screw back into the ocean"

"Almost everybody in the fishing business has had sex with a manta at some point," Makeburu asserts.

Apparently it's a ritual of manhood, done out of recognition of the dangers of life on the sea.

Before mounting one of these intimidating creatures, points out J.K. special, it is "absolutely essential" that its stinger be removed. Yes, that certainly would make sense.

"A manta's ... thing is kind of similar to a human's," Makeburu says.

Okay, well ... not exactly. More than a reproductive organ, it's basically an organ of elimination. So engaging in sex with a manta is basically an act of deep-sea sodomy.

"It's shallow and there's resistance at the other end, so the feeling isn't that good," is how he describes it.

At least the manta survives the violation. "With most fish, we just whack 'em, but we release the manta's we screw back into the ocean," Makeburu relates.

A curious Matsuzawa wonders ... if the captain had an STD, wouldn't the other crew members who had sex with the manta contract it too?

"That's right," grins Makeburu. "So some guys slip on condoms before they do it. Once I came down with the clap. But we were in port around that time and I did it with a woman, so I don't have any way of knowing if I picked it up from her, or from the manta."

Is it common, then, for marine students to lose their virginity to a manta?

"Well, no, actually it's more common for them to lose it to a moray eel," he confides.

What??!! Isn't that, like, dangerous, as in crazy?

"You can stick it in until it bites," he says. "But if you pull it away too fast the skin on your cock will tear."

Apparently once out of the water a moray becomes less aggressive. So you can force its mouth open with your hands, and then stick in your cock and let it chew on your chin-chin.

Of course you can't actually call that sex either; it's only oral sex. Or as an Italian fisherman might croon, "That's a moray!"

Should you happen to find yourself climbing on a seaside crag, you might come across a type of anemone known as "isoginchaku." And this, says Makeburu, bodes well for some fishy frolic.

The creature gets its name from the old Japanese coin purse called a "kinchaku," which puckers tightly in the center when you pull on the drawstrings.

"So if you stick in your you-know-what, it'll snap shut around it," he says. "You don't need any foreplay at all. Just ram the old avenger home. It feels goooood," he grins, rolling his eyes.

Alas, sighs Jitsuwa Knuckles Special, Japan's fishing industry is fading fast, and the charming old customs it spawned appear almost certainly doomed. Someday, perhaps soon, all that will remain are these titillating tales, about romances between the men who went to sea and the obliging creatures they encountered therein. (By Masuo Kamiyama, contributing writer)