Hosokai Koi Farm

Asagi are the reason to buy from Hosokai. Masaru Hosokai has spent decades refining one Asagi line, built on parent stock he bought from an Asagi specialist who was quitting the business, and he raises them in the heavy clay soil around Ojiya that most breeders will tell you is wrong for the variety. The farm's Asagi have been taking prizes at the All Japan Nishikigoi Show since 1986, and Hosokai is still one of the first names that comes up when someone wants a serious Asagi.

The Hosokai family were rice farmers in the Wakatochi area of Ojiya. When the government began paying farmers to take paddies out of rice in 1970, Shoichi Hosokai dug the paddies into ponds and switched to koi; the farm dates its founding to 1971. His son Masaru is the second generation and runs it now. The 2004 Chuetsu earthquake destroyed most of the ponds, but the parent fish survived and the farm rebuilt.

Goshiki is the other reason. Hosokai selected its own Goshiki parent stock, and by the mid-2000s Goshiki had become the farm's biggest seller abroad. They also produce a Goshiki and Ochiba cross the farm calls Goshiki Shigure, plus Shusui, Goromo, Kujaku, Showa and the Gosanke. Buy Hosokai for Asagi and Goshiki first; the Gosanke are competent pond fish, and they are not what the farm is famous for.

ChampKoi imports koi from Hosokai Koi Farm.