What is it like to buy koi in Japan?

when a customer comes into Sacramento coy to buy a new fish it's really fun for us to see the excitement on their face because there are very few things about this hobby more enjoyable than buying a new fish for your koi pond and rightly so but oftentimes these same customers will ask if buying one cause so much fun for me what is it like for you as a dealer to travel to Japan and by hundreds of koi it must be an amazing experience and that's true it really is an amazing experience especially if you love koi but it's also an experience that can be hard to explain to some people most people when they think of Japan imagine large bustling cities full of cars and people jockeying for position along with millions of other people living under very crowded conditions and that's true parts of Japan are like that but the Japan that we've come to know and to love is quite different from that Niigata Prefecture in northern Japan is a very beautiful scenic lush green hilly environment here you will find the very kind people living at a much slower pace - surrounded by a very rich culture here is also where you will find a number of very hard-working fish farmers or more accurately called breeders who for many generations have worked to breed some of the most beautiful fish in the world over time they have become masters at producing these fish we call these fish koi but the Japanese have another name for them they called them nishikigoi which when translated means living jewels please join us as we travel on our most recent buying trip and see firsthand what is it like to buy koi in Japan but first we have to get there [Music] [Music] welcome aboard this United flight [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] at 7:00 a.m. the next morning we all eagerly meet in the hotel lobby over breakfast we carefully review our customers pre-order lists to make sure we keep in mind any special requests made by a customer for a particular coin I need to point out that none of what we're going to experience over the next five days would be possible without the use of a broker we use Toro and suto with 4e Center fries out of Narita to services our broker over the last 15 years we have all become like a family they arranged for our hotels provide a car show for us around translate for us negotiate with each breeder to get us the best price and then they make a range that's all the koi to be gathered up and shipped to the US after we return so they are a very important part of this whole experience promptly at 8:30 a.m. our broker Toro picks us up at the hotel to drive us to the breeders he has already made arrangements for connect oh to be our first stop of the day you'll find that most breeders in Japan will raise a wide variety of koi but specialize in only two or possibly three particular breeds for instance Kaneko specializes in kujaku and sure it's surrogate many of the breeder facilities may appear very basic but don't be deceived they can still contain some amazing koi at connect o we chose to look at his less expensive fish first in Japan you will often see a tank full of average-looking quarry the real challenge comes in trying to select the best koi out of all the fish in the tank sometimes you'll see what looks like a beautiful koi only until you get it to the surface it takes a trained eye to look past the commotion of all the fish in the tank and actually be able to isolate the best koi for instance these two koi could easily have been overlooked in this in fact if you don't pay attention they quickly disappear [Music] [Music] only after we've netted out every coid that we're interested in do we then come back to the bucket and further examine each koi to see if we still like them once we finally decide on which core we will purchase both we and the breeder take photos of the koi and record the purchase the breeder will then keep the koi at his facility for shipping to us at a later date [Music] next we chose to look at his more expensive coin he quickly becomes obvious what type of core he specializes in this town shoku jock was simply amazing at this time this court wasn't for sale but to give you an idea of what this car is worth last year he declined an offer for $6,000 this is one of Kaneko standard pooja cruise the koalas fish is so beautiful the pattern is just gorgeous the scale ation which is an important part of a kujaku is perfect the head is white in the Kiwa which is the color separation couldn't get any better here is one of Kaneko's Shira series and a Matsu kara Bakke again the quality of both these koi is just beautiful the head of the Shira Suri is very clear the white on the body is extremely wasteful assuming that is the black is deep and rich and the pattern of both these fish is wonderful now it's time to say goodbye and head on to the next reader we've chosen next to visit her OE located about 15 minutes away from connect Oh Kuro is a great reader who also produces some wonderful fish he specializes in goshiki dibromo and seung-ki aroer like many other breeders in Japan requires before entering his facility that you sanitize both your hands and your shoes in an alcohol-based solution Japanese breeders are very serious about preventing the spread of disease amongst fish what's exciting about going to Japan in October is that many of the breeders are still bringing a new fish from the mud ponds while we were inside shopping at her ohi's penis staff were outside unloading new coin here are you guys a couple beautiful sure histories what's interesting is this is Nina fish he specializes in while we were there we got to see Toro Kodama from akadama koi farm he bowled up this beautiful song key to get a closer look at it we also noticed two great ginn rinpoche keys that we were interested in so we had to Hillary bolt them for us they're definitely beautiful fish in fact our broker suto pulls his hair backs and then these are beautiful but they're going to be expensive huge [Applause] and it turned out in fact they were we just felt the breeder was actually a little bit too much money for him at this time so we unfortunately had to pass on them you also need to be careful most of these facilities are not OSHA approved next we travel to Shinoda koi farm Shinoda specializes in general showers Joyce's show us and he had series he like a number of other breeders will sort his less expensive koi into individual tanks and then assign a price to all the koi in that tank here's an example of the selection that we had to choose from and the breeder allowed us to select koi from any of these three tanks all for the same price our plan for this day was to purchase a supply of Shinoda's less expensive course that we could retail back home for about $250 each we decided to net first from the tank of Hijaz series after knitting up a number of koi we finally narrowed our selection down to these four he had series then after a short break go back to netting koi in the other two fonts [Music] finally after we read on twitch Cory we were going to buy pseudo our broker began to divide the koi by size into boxes the number of boxes is an important thing to keep in mind when buying koi these koi for instance average for 2 5 kloi per box depending upon the size of the koi you could fit as little as 1 or as many as 40 koi in a box each box costs us about a hundred and eighty dollars to ship to San Francisco from Japan shipping can add a lot to the price of a toy for instance one year the shipping costs alone was almost fifteen thousand dollars next we decided to look at someone should notice larger koi and we found this beautiful 29 inch gidran Showa but should know to informed us that he was going to harvest more of his larger koi in just two days so we decided to wait on purchasing this koi with the hopes that it wouldn't sell before then as you'll see later this decision really paid off next we decided to take a quick break and get a late lunch at the local ramen shop we only had time to visit one more breeder before the end of the day so we chose to visit Yama's on koi farm visiting his farm is always a special treat for us for two reasons first Manabu always has a wide variety of nice koi especially the small ones it's also a treat because over the years we've developed a real good friendship with him and his family he specializes in joy - hair walkie kujaku and Oh Chivas Manabu like many other breeders has taken over the business from his father who retired [Applause] again the first couple days were concentrated on filling our supply of smaller coil these koi which we effectually call our bread-and-butter koi are usually between one and two years old so is this all we got so far they're more there we just want to company now you the second day we started by returning to Yama's on koi farm he was in the process of bringing in new smaller coil from one of those mud ponds today we plan to purchase a supply of tosai that is one year old koi these koi we plan to retail for about $60 each Manabu was kind enough to say in his pond and allow us to hand select each koi [Applause] and selecting each koi is a slow process but it's well worth the time it takes [Applause] yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we ended up purchasing about 250 of these smaller koi because the quality was so good [Music] and selecting over 250 small fish is fun but it does worry out a little bit now it's time to regroup we had several quests for platinum Oh guns so our broker suggested that we visit Tagore old boy farm he and his son specialize in platinum Oh guns [Music] when you first walk into his greenhouse you can't miss all the first place awards posted from the All Japan combine this decoy show and other shows and these are all for his plan and Mogens [Music] [Music] the quality of his organs is obvious here the breeder is sexing the koi to make sure there are females just like many other breeders sagoru also breeds other toys for sale in addition to his platinum oguns he also produces some nice goshiki goo Jacquizz and cumin runes these are the koi that we find decided to purchase again so much of buying coins a pan is about relationships time flies when you're having fun and before you know it it's lunch time again sweetie we all love the food in Japan but it's not too hard next up focus our koi farm he specializes in Kuja coos cumin rue or chiba the song keys from the road all you see is this new greenhouse but from the air it's a whole different perspective here you see just some of his mud ponds first we visited his old facility where he keeps his less expensive coy again the challenge is to find the best koi in the pond [Music] [Music] I just wanted to see my ocean will attempt the job then disappear really sorry after we selected which koi we were interested in purchasing its our broker Toros responsibility to negotiate the best price for us once we both agree on the purchase price the breeder arranges the koi into box locks for there we moved on to his new greenhouse where his more expensive fish are kept when we've arrived at the facility there was already some dealers from Europe buying koi the coin in this pond are averaging from one to ten thousand dollars each [Applause] here you get to view the koi from a different perspective carry one of our customers was looking for a couple really nice koi this days moving on [Music] [Music] we really like this Kohaku it had a small sore from an anchor woman's back but we weren't worried about it we were convinced that would heal up [Music] we don't know yet [Music] we then decided to look for maybe one or two other nice koi to possibly bundle with this koi for a better price this one's coming [Music] we like to look after our broker negotiates the price we finally decided to purchase the kouhaku and the Tonto was the larger balance Terry was very happy with that Tonto but he was hoping to buy at least two more Todd shows he has two big ponds one of them's 50,000 gallons so we decided to next travel to Otsuka koi farm to see if we could find another taun show but suka specializes in kia Therese Takamatsu ba asagi Thank You Theo Shiki this is a cog day at SRI it's a cross between earnest Auggie and assurance early this is Auggie is amazing but unfortunately it had already been sold [Applause] [Music] [Music] we decided to select a few bigger fish for our shop at this point [Music] [Music] [Music] yeah it [Music] [Applause] [Music] we also found another nice town show for Terry [Music] we shocked well past dark and then finally traveled back to the hotel room after a very enjoyable but long day on the third day we started out by visiting maroudo he specializes in some key Showa Qureshi GUI he has a beautiful facility along with some very amazing koi at this point all we are looking for from maroudo were some bigger koi [Music] we had a customer who had asked for two really nice Kohaku's and then something fun he calls it in their words something unusual [Music] [Music] [Music] we started out with these five koi but then we decided to put the kouhaku in the middle back and finally we settled on these three koi this song key fit the category of a fun toy the quality was wonderful and she had the face like a clown now suto our broker begins the negotiation process he said we'd be willing to purchase all three of these koi as the price would rank right in the middle of negotiations murderesses wait just a moment and take a look at this koi he then netted out this beautiful tanto something I said it's a nice boy but what's so special about this boy he said what was amazing about this koi is that it's only two years old and already it's 24 inches long he promised this is going to be a very big koi when it matures so we finally settled on a price for all four koi in short a nose [Music] then we noticed at the other end of the greenhouse his workers were bringing some new koi in from his mud ponds [Music] here are two karashi GUI this is one of the three coins that maroudo specializes in now from what we understand they're very popular in the Asian market one thing is obvious they can get very large [Applause] this one here is over 90 centimeters or 36 inches long [Music] meruna showed us this massive kouhaku which was 1 meter for 39 inch lung and still had a wonderful conformation or shape unfortunately it was already sold next we walked over to his other greenhouse [Applause] we had an order for three large Yamabuki ogon [Applause] maroudo's oh gods look a little light here the water in Japan tends to be very soft we've found that when you bring these ovens back to the United States with its heart of water within six months they turn a beautiful deep yellow [Music] maroudo also raises an unusual koi called the mikoshi ogen actually this is a very old breed it was the predecessor to today's Yamabuki ogon I'd never seen one before they looked like polished aluminum [Applause] so we decided to buy two of these four stocked at the shop [Applause] to thank us for our business maroudo's daughter was kind enough to take us all to lunch it was a nice break and gave us a chance to relax to a few next we brush back to Shinoda's quite farm because he had called our broker and said he was unloading some of his most recent harvest of his large koi [Music] the word had already gotten out and when we got there there was already some dealers from Europe waiting there was one amazing joy to Shoah that had won the best joy - in the show at the young coy show in the pond so under pressure we all pretended not to notice the koi so as not to bring attention to it just in case the other dealers hadn't noticed it yet we all patiently waited to find out who could net first finally Shinoda the breeder came over as he said Steve asan would you'd like to see some boy I jumped at the chance to net up the Showa it was spectacular we also netted this beautiful gidran shear in Surrey our customer Terry said I really want both of these coin it turned out the breeder wanted 1 billion yen or about $10,000 for the Showa and $7,500 for the Shiro so we decided to end up just Ginn Rin Showa that I'd looked at two days earlier we knew he wanted $4,000 for it so we asked Shinoda how much if we purchase all three koi we know breeders like to sell in volume so after some consideration he reduced the price of all the koi by about 20% which saved us over $4,000 we each got a koi and the breeder made a nice sale and everybody was happy after the break to give our heart rate a chance to get back down to normal we decide to look at some of his a medium-price koi for stock back at the shop [Applause] we had an opportunity to visit with mr. Shinoda senior who's retired now he happened to be in the greenhouse that day helping his son day three turned out to be a very good day trees just starting to turn we started out day for visiting my Osaka koi farm he and his son specialize in kujaku king Kesari Beneke kokoro and song [Applause] he always has a great selection of the less expensive koi that we sell a lot of so it's just a matter of paying attention you know like even that one yeah [Applause] [Applause] we ended up purchasing about 35 koi from him this time [Applause] I was thinking next time we see you guys we'll be unloading you in our treatment ponds in Sacramento next it's off to monocyte koi farm he specializes in Kohaku Sankey and asagi his facility is huge as you enter the facility the koi in the first tanks are usually the least expensive and as you approach the last tanks you get an opportunity to see his best and most expensive koi this day his father who is retired now was there visiting we've purchased koi from him for over the last 15 years he's a very nice and very hard-working man like most breeders [Applause] they were just unloading some new koi they brought in from their mud ponds watch how carefully they introduced these expensive koi into the new indoor pond water [Applause] everywhere you look there are COI it really is so much fun [Music] Terry found one more Tonto that he just couldn't resist again you need to appreciate Terry as a beautiful 50,000 gallon prawn an additional 17 thousand gallon pond at his residence these ponds can hold a lot of koi [Applause] [Music] here is a big Kohaku that we picked up now we're back to picking out more of our bread-and-butter coin finally as the day was ending we rushed over the pseudo koi farm he specializes in just long fin ok again he grows a big variety of koi for the sale but his specialty is the long fin [Music] Oh [Music] [Applause] we selected the koi they were interested in and the breeder gave us a price on each koi again we chose to bundle the koi and ask that give us a price if we purchase all of them the price still seemed a little high I said I don't think this is gonna work so they renegotiated and came up with a new price the new price was much better so we decided to purchase the koi [Music] while we were there the breeders father was harvesting a big Japanese hornet's nest that he had just covered with the tarp and smoke to kill the Hornets I had never seen a Hornet that big before they were really huge I asked him what he was going to do with them and he said eat them of course then he lovingly gave me a handful for me you finally day 5 the last shopping day in Niigata Manabu called us and asked if we would like to see a mud pond harvested we jumped at the chance so we returned to yamas on koi farm it's for one more visit throughout the buying season breeders try to keep a fresh stock of koi in their facility to keep their customers happy so at this point he only wanted to harvest about 1/3 of the pond st. in a mud pond is a slow methodical process you don't want to frighten the fish you just want to gather them in - we're gonna wanna know [Applause] as you can see raising toys a lot of work [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] they make sure to clean the mud off the net before they let it dry out [Applause] so back to the greenhouse we all go the other [Music] [Applause] we found a few nice koi in this new harvest of fish [Music] [Music] finally we had a chance to pick out some of his larger gory [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] harder water's fine come up and be more refined and the pattern could keep striking and it's with this almost a Tantra head and the fins are beautiful on it it's very nice quality again so how about we take that oh yes it'll probably is a little different okay then just yeah now we're off to calico McCoy farm he specializes in goshiki cumin row and Benny he has a smaller facility but he still has some very nice fish Oh [Music] [Music] Terry saw cumin rue was a very unusual pattern I tried to explain to him that a cumin rose pattern can changed dramatically and in six months the white spot could be on the other side of the fish doesn't matter but he's still wanted the fish I don't want to get up tomorrow that night a lot of who was kind enough to take us out to dinner for our last evening in Niigata this was a very nice restaurant where you cook your own steak on a hot stone these stones are amazing they stayed very hot so for up to an hour it was a very fun and relaxing time together now it's time to leave Niigata we took the bullet train back to Tokyo [Applause] [Music] [Music] next we took the Express train to Narita Airport where we said goodbye to everyone most of our party was returning to the US at this point but Jeff and I were flying two hours south to Fukuoka Japan to visit one more breeder and that was Okada koi farm on the flight jeff reviews what we've purchased to this point we want to have a better idea as to what to shop for ahead oh goddess when we landed in Fukuoka mrs. Ogata the breeders wife is there to pick us up at the airport her and her husband Manabu are very nice people and they're always a joy to work with she then drove us to her hotel room you early the next day their staff picked us up to go to the farm Manabu and his wife are unique in that they are one of the very few breeders that actually speaks English - oh god it doesn't specialize in any one court but offers a wide variety of coy shopping Oh got a koi farm is a completely different experience than shopping in Niigata here you come only by appointment he has 8 large tanks each stocked with koi the fish in each tank are assigned a price starting with the least expensive at one end of the room and graduating to the most expensive at the other end of the room he first invites from four to six dealers for the day the day starts by giving you an opportunity to look over the ponds then the staff scenes up all the koi in that tank to one end of the tank once the net is secured we're given the sign to start knitting this process creates a very competitive atmosphere because if you see a nice koi you need to net it quickly before another dealer Nets it the pricing for the coin each tank is also influenced by how many core you buy Oh God alike other breeders likes to sell in volume if you buy for instance 10 or more from one tank you get a reduced price by almost 20% mr. Ogata is a very good businessman this whole process is designed to sell a large volume of koi in a short period of time after netting your koi you get an opportunity to examine each koi you've selected carefully to make sure that it's exactly what you want and if you're not happy with it you're free to put it back in the pond here are some of the koi we selected [Applause] once the shopping is over all of our koi are placed in the separate tank and we held there until about a week later when they're shipped to us in the United States once you become a friend of the Oh goddess they treat you like family that night the two of them took Jeff and I out to dinner this restaurant specializes in squid not just squid but fresh with the squid is prepared and filleted into bite-sized pieces and brought to your table only one problem it's watching you while you eat him that was creepy for me but he was delicious the next day it's time to head home first we fly back to Narita from Fukuoka about two-hour flight and then we hop on a separate flight back to California as you settled back in your seat and you begin to doze off you can't help but reflect on what you have just experienced the places you've seen the friends you have met and all the beautiful Cory that you've seen but especially the ones you purchased and it's at this point that you really appreciate what it is like to buy koi in Japan we sincerely hope that you enjoyed watching our video on what does it like to buy coins a pan but we'd also like to inform you we have a number of other videos one of them for instance you might enjoy if you're building a new pond are looking to renovate an existing pond is our video 20 questions to ask yourself before you build a koi pond it's a one hour video full of some great information and tips on pond design and construction and the purpose of this video is to help you build your pond right the first time additionally we have a video on the advantage plug and play koi pond filtration system we manufacture this system but this video shows you why many people feel not only is it the best filter to use it's the easiest to operate and that's one of the easiest to maintain but also it comes with a one-year unconditional satisfaction guarantee it's the only field from the market that does that that means that for any reason in the first year if you're not completely happy with the filter we'll buy it back no questions asked if you have any questions feel free to contact us at Sacramento koi com thank you [Music]

Channel: Sacramento Koi

Views: 7,534,983

Rating: 4.7749958 out of 5

Keywords: Japan, Koi, Koi Farm, Koi Breeder, Yamasan, Shinoda, Marudo, Hiroi, Chogoro, Kaneko, Suda, Fukasawa, Otsuka, Marusaka, Marusei, Kawakami, Ogata, Showa, Sanke, Kohaku, Tancho, Yamabuki, Ogon

Id: dyyU3g8t76A

Length: 57min 44sec (3464 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 06 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/surviro]

This is honestly one of the best random youtube documentaries I’ve watched. The first time I was like it’s way too long and I’m not going to watch the whole thing, I’ve now seen it like 3 times

[u/inner_asian]

For anyone traveling to Japan those JR passes are a godsend. You pay a flat fee and then you can get on any JR train you want even the Shinkansen or bullet train (with the exception of the most expensive and fastest type of bullet train: the Nozomi and Mizuho. They call these the SuperExpress trains.). They separate it by area but you can also get one for the whole island of japan. I was about to travel from Hiroshima to Tokyo practically free with the pass. (A round trip to Hiroshima and Tokyo is about equivalent the price for a 7 day island wide pass) so if you’re traveling a lot and for a good amount of time get one of those. Hope this helped someone that’s planning a trip. Edit: spelling

[u/Cookizza]

There is NO WAY I'm watching an hour video about fish......

watches entire video

[u/azdak]

yo Terry is fucking BALLIN OUT over there

[u/qrstu4]

Thanks for this - very interesting.

Really enjoyed the part when he's like "watch how carefully he handles these super expensive fish" and then the owner chucks one in from like three feet above.

Shows a super dry sarcasm, contrary to what the downvoted comment says about lack of personality.

Personally, I liked the pacing and narration to be very soothing, and his passion comes through even through the monotone.

[u/asuddenpie]

I accidentally watched this entire video and then accidentally clicked on more from Sacramento Koi. Apparently they had a HUGE setback due to disease in a handful of the fish from Japan. So tragic for all those beautiful fish, but it only made me admire the company even more. I wish them lots of luck in the future!

[u/Sophilosophical]

I love how the pacing is so much like an NHK documentary

[u/Gulanga]

Now this is a narrow subject!

[u/10111011110101]

I somehow watched this video and then a dozen others about koi. I never watch videos on YouTube that area this long so this is quite the feat.