Buy Sakazume for Goromo. Shinsaku Sakazume is one of the few breeders in Japan who treats Aigoromo and Budo Goromo as the main crop instead of a sideline: by his own account about half of what the farm produces is Koromo, and the Sakazume Aigoromo is a recognised name at shows inside and outside Japan.
The line dates to 1991. Sakazume saw an Aigoromo that had won its category at the 1990 ZNA All Japan Nishikigoi Show in Niigata, decided it belonged in a spawning pond rather than a show tank, and talked the owner into letting him spawn from it. That fish is gone, but its genealogy is still what the farm breeds from. What sets the line apart is the ai, the indigo reticulation over each red scale. He selects parents on ai first and pattern second, and the koromo tends to show early, often at tosai, so you can pick one young with some confidence.
The farm is in Koguriyama, Ojiya, and trades under the old family nickname Sakubei. Sakutaro Sakazume, Shinsaku's father, set it up in 1964, when koi farms were first forming around Yamakoshi, and built the 'Sakubei Kohaku' from Yagozen stock, a line known for very deep red. Shinsaku joined full-time in 1972 at 25 and still breeds Kohaku, Showa and Yamato Nishiki alongside the Goromo. It is a small family operation, not a volume producer.
If you want a Goromo that holds its pattern and body as it grows, this is the farm; Sakazume says his Koromo will reach 80 cm with good keeping. It is not the place for jumbo Gosanke. ChampKoi imports koi from Sakazume Koi Farm.
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