Showa. Marudo. Tosai. 25cm.
It's not often one makes a prediction on Tosai with any certainty but let's discuss why we like this little Koi here.
This is a typical kindai showa. Plenty of white on the Koi and with kindai showa one wants to see that this white is of good quality. On this Koi we have an excellent white on which to build the rest of the Koi.
But speaking of building let us start with the body. For a young Koi this fish has excellent body conformation. Which you would expect with this bloodline - but even as a young Koi this fish is impressive.
We like the tail tube in area F - for Showa we want to see a good thick tail at this stage. Note that this Koi has a perfect odome - or white break just before the tail. Very nice indeed.
The fins are also big and strong - they look female (it's a guess) which is encouraging. You can see light black streaks in the fins (D) which is excellent. On Showa these tend to consolidate into the traditional motoguru (black blobs in the base of the fins). The fins are also clear and free of imperfections.
Moving to area A - this is possibly the only area of concern. The sashi (blurred red) on the leading edge is acceptable but not consistent. This is probably just an aberration and won't keep us awake at night. Right at the back though we have three or four scales that look as if they want to break away from the rest of the red pattern. If this happens it won't be the end of the world, but it's not something we'd like to see happen.
However, in the positive side of things the red on the Koi is excellent and consistent across the fish. It is certainly strong enough that with some care our concerns above would be mitigated.
Area C, the head is most interesting. We can see the black menware pattern making its presence felt and in a few years hopefully the black head pattern will emerge to show a pleasing pattern. It is certainly showing us the potential!
We love area E. This is a clean patch of snow white that makes the Koi. It is balanced on the opposite shoulder with an equally impressive patch. If some black chooses to make its presence felt in either of these areas we'd be ecstatic.
Area B shows us the black potential. Here we have a nice consolidated black patch - excellent to see on a young Koi. It is also most happily placed on the white of the fish which is also good. The quality of the black is very good and we know this bloodline develops excellent sumi as they grow bigger.
This was not a cheap Tosai when we purchased it. In fact it was seriously expensive. The fish may not look like a million bucks now, but any showa Tosai worth its salt very rarely does. But in the right hands, when this Showa gets older it has the potential to knock the spots off very much more expensive Koi!
