Buying Koi in Japan: How It Actually Works

Most people picture buying koi in Japan as standing at a pond and pointing at a fish. Sometimes that is exactly what it is. But on our 2026 winter trip — fourteen farms, from Narita near Tokyo to Niigata, Hiroshima and Fukuoka, filmed as an eight-part series — Zak bought koi at least six different ways, and only some of them involved choosing one fish at a time.

We work with a broker in Japan, as almost every importer does. Someone on the ground has to manage what a buyer from overseas can't do from Miami. What a broker can't do is build the relationships with the breeders themselves — and those relationships decide which fish you get offered, which ones you can trust a breeder to pick for you, and which ones you have to go and fight for. That part only comes from showing up. Zak lived and studied in Japan and speaks Japanese with the breeders, which, in his words, is "really nice… to get the secrets."

This is what the trip actually involved.

Going in winter, after the rush

The trip started the day after the All Japan Koi Show finished. By then the big selling season is over: farms move their best fish in autumn — Ogata, for one, "sells out pretty fast in October, November, December" — and by mid-winter much of the stock has been picked over by other buyers.

That sounds like a disadvantage. It isn't, quite. "These are what's left over from the rush and fall," Zak says at Miyatora, "there's still a lot of good koi in here — and for the right price." Or, as he puts it elsewhere, "there's still a lot of good jewels in the rough." Finding them is the job.

Winter in Niigata also means snow. This year a friend sent a photo of it eight feet high in town, the restaurants were shut for the weather — lunch was grocery-store sushi — and every day was a race to the next appointment. As Zak puts it, "In Japan, if you're on time, you're late. If you're early, you're on time."

Six ways koi actually get bought

1. Choosing individual fish

The version everyone imagines, and how almost every older koi on this site was bought. At Omosako in Hiroshima, Zak bought an 82cm, seven-year-old Kujaku for one of our clients. At Ozumi Ikarashi he worked through the ponds to six individual picks. At Tani Koi Farm in Narita it was around thirty high-quality Beni Kumonryu, under a year old — "each one is unique and individual."

Some fish chosen this way don't leave Japan straight away. At Taniguchi, Zak agreed on three tategoi — a breeder's highest-potential young fish — with two going to a customer and one to us, and all three staying at the farm for a year so Mr. Taniguchi can grow them out for the All Japan Koi Show. At Ogata there is an entire greenhouse of fish like that: azukari, koi that buyers have already bought and the farm keeps and grows on for them.

2. Hand-picking tosai

Tosai are one-year-old koi, and Zak picks a lot of ours out of the pond himself. At Ogata, in Kurume, he did it with a clicker counter in hand. Other customers had arrived first, so they went first — "it's only fair" — and then it was pond by pond. He chose 50, cut that to 20, and finished with 21. "In October, a lot of this is just going one by one. It's not as exciting. When you watch a video, it's all sped up."

3. Mixed boxes ordered ahead

Plenty of our other tosai are bought this way, and we would rather say so plainly. Before the trip even started, Zak already had "a bunch of boxes on order of mixed koi and specific koi." At Otsuka he buys mixed boxes every year "because he has such a large variety," and he watched Otsuka sort them by class and size with a clicker of his own. Zak prefers them smaller: "you can ship more in a box and they have a higher chance of being happy and healthy when they arrive."

4. Letting the breeder choose

Sometimes the best move is knowing when not to pick. At Oyama, Zak was offered the chance to choose a mix of tosai himself. "Honestly, who's going to choose better, me or him? So I asked him to choose, and he's going to send me a box of 50 of this mix." At Taniguchi, with the clock running, he asked Mr. Taniguchi to choose a box for us too. A breeder knows his own fish better than any buyer can learn them in an afternoon.

5. The silent auction

At Oya Koi Farm in Niigata, fish were sold by silent auction: whole lots, bid blind, with the big dealers in the room. "You have no idea what everyone else is bidding for. All you can see is the minimum bid." Zak bid on a lot of thirty black tosai and on some Sanke and Showa — and left not knowing whether he had won anything.

6. Look now, buy later

Not everything gets settled at the pond side. At Otsuka, Zak photographed fish he liked so he could ask about pricing afterwards. At Omosako, the Shiro Utsuri he came for weren't ready — "I just came in bad timing" — so they will be sent on later. Some of what ends up on this site was agreed on the trip and arrives afterwards.

What Zak is actually looking for

Across the series, one idea comes up again and again: "You're not buying the koi you're looking at, you're buying the future koi." Almost everything else follows from it.

• Dark Kujaku, small. "When they're small, you want to choose them when they're dark, 'cause as they get bigger, they become more and more beautiful."
• Sumi under the skin. On a young fish you can often see the black still waiting below the surface as a blue shadow. "See the blue under the skin? That is the sumi."
• Red that comes late on Asagi. "As it gets older and older, then the red should come in… You can't just expect it to look amazing when it's young."
• Ginrin that lasts. Almost every small Ginrin looks shiny. The question is whether the sparkle holds as the fish grows; Oyama explained why.
• Small faults, honestly priced. A Kohaku with a little red on the gills isn't a show fish, but if you just want a really nice Kohaku, "you're getting a good deal."
• Size isn't health. "Just because they're not enormous doesn't mean they're not healthy" — some farms keep fish small deliberately because the colour develops better.

And underneath all of it, a buyer's honesty: "I always buy what I like, not always what I can sell."

Why patience is the whole game

The best argument for buying future koi came at Taniguchi. Mr. Taniguchi showed us a 95cm koi he had kept for years with an excellent body and nothing else — it stayed pure white until it was three, then developed into the fish that went on to win a string of awards. "That's why you have to have patience in koi keeping."

He had a second story, told with more regret. Golden Corn — the variety Taniguchi created — can stay completely white until a fish reaches around 70cm. He once gave fifty white Golden Corn, fish he took for nothing, to a golf course. Every one of them turned a deep, beautiful yellow. Fish he could have sold, now living in a golf course pond.

What can go wrong

Plenty, and sometimes you see it happen. At Taniguchi, a Showa tosai one of our customers was interested in had a slightly split fin. Mr. Taniguchi brought out his kit, sedated the fish in the water so it wouldn't injure itself, and stitched the fin on the spot with sutures that melt away as it heals.

Other things go wrong more quietly. At Kaneko, the farm had sold almost everything and a fish Zak had his eye on was already gone. And the road up to Oyama is, in Zak's words, "the test. If you can survive and not fall off, you're allowed to buy koi from him."

The farms on this trip

In the order we visited them:

Narita, near Tokyo

• Tani — the morning after the All Japan show, around thirty high-quality Beni Kumonryu. (Not to be confused with Taniguchi, in Hiroshima — two entirely separate farms.)

Niigata

• Miyatora — Takumi was out snow-plowing and trusted us to choose without him.
• Marusei — twenty to thirty fish, including two-year-old Kohaku chosen for clean, unusual patterns, plus Showa and Bekko.
• Otsuka — mixed boxes, every year.
• Maruhiro — where we buy both tosai and big fish most years.
• Oya — the silent auction.
• Kanno — Zak spent part of the summer here helping Kazuhiro Hirasawa sort fish, then came back to buy Goshiki tosai from the same ponds. "You think there's ones in here that I was actually separating when they were this small?" "Definitely."
• Kaneko — sold out of nearly everything.
• Ozumi Ikarashi — asked what his farm is known for, Ikarashi answered: "Weird koi."
• Isa.

Hiroshima

• Taniguchi — Golden Corn, three tategoi, and the surgery.
• Oyama — a box of fifty chosen by the breeder, and Chagoi with rare metallic pectoral fins. The full visit is in Oyama Koi Farm: Ginrin that lasts.
• Omosako — Takahiro Omosako opened on a Saturday to meet us; the 82cm Kujaku.

Fukuoka

• Ogata — Zak's first visit, after knowing Mr. Ogata for a while. Planned as one day, it became two: "he has so many choices." The full write-up is in inside Ogata Koi Farm.

Getting them home

Once the fish are chosen, our broker in Japan handles getting them out of the country, and they are packed and flown to us. Not everything travels at once: boxes like Oyama's are sent on afterwards, some fish wait until they're ready, and some stay in Japan for a year to grow.

Before your first order, it is worth reading what to do when your koi box arrives and how to quarantine new koi.

Watch the whole series

The full playlist is on YouTube, or jump to an episode:

1. Part 1 — Tani, Miyatora and Marusei
2. Part 2 — Otsuka, Maruhiro, the Oya silent auction and Kanno
3. Part 3 — Otsuka, Kaneko, Ozumi Ikarashi and Isa
4. Part 4 — Taniguchi, Hiroshima, and an emergency koi surgery
5. Part 5 — Oyama and incredible Ginrin
6. Part 6 — Omosako and how to choose Kujaku
7. Ogata and the tosai hunt
8. Behind the scenes at Ogata Koi Farm

What this means if you're buying from us

The koi on this site come from farms we know, and almost every older koi was chosen individually at the pond side and is listed with video of that exact fish, its size, sex, year born and breeder. Tosai come both ways: many picked out of the pond one by one, others as a mix we chose at the farm, in which case the listing covers a group of young koi rather than one named fish.

Live koi ship Tuesdays and Wednesdays, anywhere in the USA, and tosai orders over $400 ship free. If you want to start where the value is, start with buying tosai. If you want to see what's in the tanks right now, start with every koi we currently have available.