The town of Taiji in Wakayama Prefecture has a history of hunting cetaceans that dates back hundreds of years. Over the last half century, a group of local fishermen have regularly hunted dolphins and small whales for slaughter or sale to aquariums, which has drawn criticism and protests from mainly western activists. This criticism coalesced into a global prohibition regime that broke into the mainstream with the scathing documentary The Cove, which won an Academy Award in 2010. Despite widespread international support for this regime to end Taiji’s dolphin hunts, they have continued with strong domestic support. This study examines why the global prohibition regime against Taiji’s dolphin hunts failed to take root in Japan, through the voices of those that were in the town for its early stages.