Learn from the source — in your language
🎬 Inside Japanese Wagyu — on film
All Japan videos →Sire-raising, calf markets, feeding, and farm life — straight from Japanese channels, titles translated.
📰 Japan's Wagyu press — translated
All Japan news →🏆 Japan's champion sales
Matsusaka's champion cow auction has topped ¥50,000,000 — the most expensive cattle sold anywhere on earth. Our sale database tracks the champion prices year by year.
See the Japan sale data →📜 How Wagyu left Japan
Four bulls in 1976. Fewer than 250 animals ever. Every fullblood on earth traces to a handful of exports Japan later called a national loss — the full story, with all 103 foundation animals, lives in our breed history.
🗒 The vocabulary — terms every breeder should know
Read a Japanese sale report or grading sheet without getting lost.
“Japanese cattle” — the umbrella term. Japanese Black and Akaushi are distinct breeds beneath it.
Japanese Black — the breed behind ~95% of Wagyu, and all extreme marbling lines.
Japanese Brown (Red) — the Kumamoto-line breed; leaner, maternal, famously docile.
“Falling frost” — the intramuscular marbling Wagyu is bred for.
Japan's 1–12 marbling scale; BMS 8+ maps to the top of A5.
Top yield grade (A) + top quality grade (5) — the pinnacle of the JMGA carcass grade.
The Hyogo strain behind Kobe beef — small-framed, unrivaled marbling. Michifuku and Itoshigenami are Tajima.
A licensed breeding sire — Japan's prefectures test and license bulls before semen is distributed.
Virgin-heifer beef from Mie Prefecture — routinely the most expensive cattle sold anywhere on earth.
The dressed carcass — what Japan's famous carcass auctions actually price.
Auction — calf markets (kōshi seri) set the tone for Japan's entire production chain.
Bloodline/pedigree — Tajima, Fujiyoshi (Shimane), Kedaka (Tottori), and Itozakura are the pillars.