Taiyaki is similar to imagawayaki, which is a thick round cake, also filled with sweet adzuki bean paste or custard.

It is essentially a reshaped form of imagawayaki, an already popular snack made by wrapping bean paste in flour skin.

Seijirō Kobe, founder of the store Naniwaya Sōhonten (浪花家総本店),[2] was having trouble selling his imagawayaki, so he decided to bake the cakes into fish shapes resembling tai, or red sea bream.

Tai is considered a symbol of luck and fortune in Japan and was an expensive fish only affordable by the higher classes or on special occasions.

Masamori Kobe, the fourth owner of the store, stated that Seijirō wanted to give ordinary people a taste of the expensive fish at low prices.