What Makes a Koi Beautiful? Kanno's Goshiki, and Four More Koi with Kazuhiro Hirasawa

Kanno Koi Farm is known for one variety above all, and in this episode of What Makes Koi Beautiful? the man who breeds them explains why. Kazuhiro Hirasawa runs Kanno in Niigata, and Zak has worked alongside him, sorting fry there the summer before our 2026 winter trip. For this episode Hirasawa sent photos and video of koi he chose himself, and the two of them went through them one by one, in Japanese.

Zak's introduction is worth quoting, because it is the reason we keep going back: Kanno "is known for its Goshiki, but it has a lot of other really good koi. And he is on the rise… His koi are constantly becoming champions and he's expanding his fish houses." Three of the koi below are Goshiki. The other four show what else the farm can do.

1. A champion Goshiki

The first fish took Champion B at this year's Young Koi Show, at 63cm, and the year before it won the Sakura Prize at the Nagaoka Koi Show. It is still in Japan and is going to the All Japan this year. Hirasawa's reasons were simple: a full body and a good pattern. The pattern is maruten, a separate red mark on the head as well as the pattern on the body, and what he liked most was the balance between them.

Zak asked the question every Goshiki buyer eventually asks: why are some areas white and others black? Hirasawa's answer was almost a shrug. "That's because it's Goshiki. If it were all black, it would be Hi Utsuri." The variety lives in that mix.

He also explained something that makes Goshiki easier to judge than people expect. The sashi and kiwa, the leading and trailing edges of each red patch, were clean, and on a Goshiki even where there is some sashi, "the sumi covers it, so you can't see it." The white ground was pure white.

The same champion, six months apart

Then Hirasawa showed the same fish twice: at the Nagaoka show in 2025, where it won the Sakura Prize, and six months later. In the second photo it is far blacker. Zak asked if there was a special technique. There wasn't. "The water. And the temperature of the water." Cold winter water in the greenhouse brought the black up.

It doesn't stay put. Asked whether the fish would look the same now that it was autumn: "It changes again. It goes back to blue, then turns black again." His one-line summary of the variety: "Goshiki are difficult." Zak added the Miami side: here a Goshiki can hold its dark look, and it can also turn white later. Harder water, Hirasawa said, is better, and water in Japan varies from place to place.

If you buy a Goshiki, this is the most useful thing in the episode. A champion one year can look like a different fish six months later. Season, temperature and water will move the black and blue around, sometimes a lot, in a matter of months.

2. The Goshiki that beat the Gosanke

The second fish won Young Champion at the All Japan Young Koi Show, against Showa, Kohaku and Sanke. Zak remembered it, and the two of them had filmed it together before. "It's difficult for Goshiki to be able to do that. But they can compete at that level."

Its strength is the pattern. "Kanno's patterns are always interesting," Zak said, and Hirasawa agreed this one's pattern is its best feature. Right now it is a little blue, "but it's beautiful even when blue." Its red reaches all the way to the tail, which some people mark down. Hirasawa's view: completely fine.

3. A blue Goshiki, and floating beni

The third Goshiki doesn't go as dark as the others, and it won anyway: Grand Champion B at the Junior Koi Show. "Above all, it's beautiful." A four-step pattern, and red that Zak described with the English hobby term floating beni, red that looks as though it sits on top of the fish. On this koi no black comes through the red at all. "That's really difficult. Really, really difficult."

Why the male matters most

Zak asked how Kanno gets red that clean. The answer was breeding, and specifically the male. "I used a clean male." The female needs size and decent quality; the male decides the rest. "The male is the most important." His body counts too. Hirasawa compared it to horse breeding, and Zak had heard the same from one of our own customers.

It is a useful corrective for buyers. Males usually cost less, and a lot of people pass them over. Hirasawa's view was blunt: "A good male is a good male."

4. Hi Utsuri

Not a Goshiki, and Zak didn't know Kanno still bred them: a Hi Utsuri of Hirasawa's own breeding, from Shinoda bloodline with Hi Utsuri on both sides. It won the Botan Prize at the All Japan Koi Show in the 65cm class. What makes it beautiful is how clean it is: no stray speckles of sumi on the red, "super clean." The head is split by black, with a little white showing, and that, he said, doesn't matter. The body is very good too.

5. Yamabuki Ogon

Zak had seen this one at last year's All Japan, where it won the Botan Prize. What stands out is the fukurin, the lighter skin around each scale that makes a net across the body, even in a photo. The body is excellent, the fins are beautiful and the colour is even from head to tail. Asked for its best feature, Hirasawa named two: colour and hari, the fullness of the body.

The breeding is the interesting part. It is Momotaro bloodline, crossed with a Karashi: a Yamabuki Ogon male and a Karashi female, with the body shape coming from the Karashi side. "These will grow extremely large." When they spoke it was still out in the mud pond, unharvested, and Hirasawa guessed it was about a metre. (On our winter visit he showed us 45cm first-year siblings from a Momotaro metallic mix; that is in our Kanno farm visit.)

6. Doitsu Showa

A Doitsu Showa, the scaleless form: clean, an interesting pattern, good balance and not too much sumi, with a little more likely to come through. The pectoral fins are beautiful. Hirasawa pointed out that a good body is hard to get on Doitsu, and this one has it. At 53cm it is still small and still developing.

7. Kin Showa

Zak admitted on camera that Kin Showa, the metallic Showa, are a variety he likes but finds hard to read, especially small, and that sorting them was hard even after Hirasawa had shown him how. This one he understood at once.

Hirasawa's reasons: a good body, a broad head, and a sumi pattern that actually shows. On many Kin Showa the black isn't glossy enough for the pattern to read; here it does. The motoguro, the black at the base of the pectoral fins, is solid, the white ground is platinum rather than yellow, and the balance of black and red runs over four or five steps.

The line is Kintaro bloodline, from a good pair of parents Hirasawa got from a friend. He pairs Kin Showa with Kin Showa, or Gin Shiro with Kin Showa, and avoids Kujaku: bring Kujaku in and "the sumi will not be as good." Kin Showa, he said, can be difficult to breed.

What to take from it

• A Goshiki is a moving target. The champion went much blacker in six months and will go blue again. Water and temperature do it. Buy the fish, not the photo.
• Blue can win. The third Goshiki never goes as dark as the others and still took Grand Champion B.
• Clean red starts with the male. If you are choosing parents, or choosing between a male and a female at a better price, don't dismiss the male.
• Body is hard on Doitsu and Kin Showa. When you find a good one, that is what you are paying for.
• The rulebook bends. Red to the tail, a little white on a Hi Utsuri's head: not faults on a fish this good. Yusuke Ogata said the same thing in Episode 1.

Asked for advice for viewers, Hirasawa didn't talk about any of that. "Koi are not just a pattern. It isn't only about koi shows. The koi you like and choose is the best koi." And then: "A koi with good quality is good." Zak's last word was that this is exactly Kanno's specialty: always quality.

The series continues in episode 3, with Takumi Miya of Miyatora Koi Farm: a Ginrin Shusui, a Kujaku crossed for its body, and a Beni Kikokuryu transformed by the mud pond.

Browse our Kanno koi and Goshiki, or every koi we currently have available. For the farm itself, read Kanno Koi Farm: Goshiki sorted in summer, bought in the snow. Live koi ship Tuesdays and Wednesdays, anywhere in the USA.