Sou Yamauchi (@suymuc) is the director of the 北の大地の水族館 Northern Daichi Aquarium in Kitami, Hokkaido.

He often updates his Twitter with his aquarium’s signature “Ask the Aquarium Keepers” survey.

Visitors can ask the aquarium staff any question they’d like and check the aquarium’s bulletin board or SNS the next day for the answer.

One 8-year-old boy’s question had Mr. Yamauchi stumped.

To which Mr. Yamauchi could only reply,

Obviously 8-year-old Sou really enjoyed himself at the aquarium.

But he was less curious about the creatures he saw there and more concerned about why there were so few visitors.

Sou’s perceptive question may have struck upon something that Mr. Yamauchi, as director of the aquarium, also asks himself. Certainly, they both hope more people will come and appreciate Northern Daichi Aquarium.

Fortunately, Twitter users' response to Sou’s question and Mr. Yamauchi’s answer has been tremendous, with many comments like these:

With more than 189,000 Likes and 38,000 Retweets, people have definitely taken notice of the aquarium. Hopefully there’ll be more visitors thanks to Sou and Mr. Yamauchi!

On a final note, here’s another question from 22-year-old “Banzai!” Something perhaps more than a few of us have wondered ourselves…

Mr. Yamauchi simply replied,

He followed up his reply in the post’s comments section by explaining that although some tanks are made of glass, most are made of acrylic, which are much more durable and only shatter or crack from a VERY sharp impact.