Mitsugoro Bando VIII Last Meal...

I say Mitsugoro Bando VIII and you say____.

Don't know who Bando is? Here in the United States, you'd get blank stares, but in Japan, Bando is, or was a living national treasure.
Mitsugoro was a Kabuki actor. Kabuki, is a form of traditional Japanese theater.
He was considered the Marlon Brando of Kabuki theater.

Alas, Mitsugoro liked to tempt fate, and fate he surely tempted. He went out to dinner with some friends January 1975. The dish was a memorable one, not only for it was his last, but for the very nature of the dish.

His last meal was:

Fugu liver - Liver from Puffer fish.

Fugu is highly toxic. The fish contains lethal amounts of the poison tetrodotoxin in the internal organs, especially the liver and the ovaries, but also in the skin and the testicles. It is perhaps for this reason that Fugu is considered a delicacy in Japan. Japanese chefs have to specially train to prepare for this dish for 2-3 years, and even then they have to take a series of test before they are licensed Fugu chefs.
The test consists of a written test, a fish identification test, and a practical test of preparing fugu and then eating it. Of course you'd fail the final exam after eating an ill prepared Fugu liver, wouldn't you.
Unfortunately for Mistsugoro, he just didn't eat one servering of Fugu liver, but four. Not one spin at Russian roulette, but four go's at it. Poor fella was just begging to die.