The 2020 All Japan Koi Show – Tokyo.
The show was excellent, as usual. If you want to see the best Koi on the planet then this is the Show you have to see, at least once!
Koi from 10cm all the way up to 110cm! Almost 2000 Koi were entered in the 2020 All Japan Show!!
The show is organized by Shinkokai which is the breeders association. The breeders from the North, and the South build and take down the show. They also do all the running around during benching and of course assist the judging.
Judging is completed by breeders and dealers only.
There are every single variety you can possibly think of, in all sizes!
The Koi are all entered into each Vat. The Vat are reserved by the breeders and they will show their customers Koi. The cost of entering the show is high considering in the west the entry fees are tiny in comparison.
A single Vat is around £1000.00 to have! A dealer last year spent close to £100,000 just in entry fees!! Its incredible.
However, the show is in Tokyo at a huge exhibition center which must cost a lot of money. Profits made are put back into the industry via the Shinkokai.
They also run training sessions for the staff at the show, and the Young breeder’s association who are helping at the show, get taught many different things about the industry. They even had a talk on KHV to help the new breeders to understand what it is, and how not to get it.
So, it isn’t just a Koi show.
The Grand Champion was a SUPERB Dainichi Kohaku which is 93cm, and beautiful. There was a Sanke which came very close, but the Kohaku took it for me, the body, pattern and skin were on point. The competition for Grand Champion is crazy. There were at least 5 Koi at the show which could have easily took the award with no arguments. The Dainichi was a well-deserved winner, and now takes the crown of the best Koi in the world!
This was also a good result for the Niigata area to take a Grand Champion.
Looking round the show isn’t like your normal show. You take a walk around the hundreds of vats and have to double take at most of them to see the Koi in there. They really are some of the best Koi you will ever see, and each Variety has the best examples of their variety. Some incredible Koi on display.
The walls of the Koi Show are lined with pictures of all the previous 50 Grand Champions, I made the mistake of counting back from the first All Japan Koi show I ever attended and counted back 19… So, including this year, its 20 years since my first All Japan Koi show… It makes you feel very old!
We arrived on the Friday and met up with the clients, then we visited the famous fish market, which is in Tokyo, you have to get there quite early to see all the fish being sold etc.
A couple of hours there and then we made it to the Koi Show at 9am. 5 hours of walkinga round the show and meeting people from all over the world, it was time to leave Tokyo and get up to the Yamakoshi mountains to look for our Koi.
I will get the video together as soon as I can, internet dependent and it’s going to be pretty long. I will get the posted ASAP!
