| Matsukawabake & Showa
While waiting for Hurricane Jeanne to make her way through the area, I had time for a bit of reading. An article in an old Japanese magazine gave some curious perspectives new to me that I thought worth sharing. Paraphrasing,
The Otsuka family in Matsukawa, Suhara village, was well known in the late 19th century for their production of Asagi, of which they produced several unusual strains for that time. Among them was a strange Asagi with a pattern of Bekko overlaying the Asagi scales. The pattern would become faint or even disappear during the summer, only to return with cool autumn temperatures, but not always with the same pattern. The pattern would change. Sometimes the change was so great that the fish would not be recognized. It would be a low grade fish of no worth in the summer, but have high grade character during the winter. The fish was treated as a monster (bakemono), and was given the name Bake Asagi. It became popular, and known as Matsukawa's Bake Asagi. In time, it was shortened to Matsukawabake.
The author continues ...
Having Hi on the abdomen of the fish was highly valued. Regrettably, the patterns were not stable, but some of the people (of the village/area???) succeeded in producing "the most excellent koi that had ever been produced from the offsprings of this origin". But the instability of the patterns persisted.
The author then posits:
"Here, we would like to explain the question, 'Why does the Showa Sanshouku change drastically from the stage of fry through that of adult fish?' And we'd like to introduce one opinion which was united in the home of Showa Sanshoukou. It is that the present Showa Sanshoukou has been improved by transferring plenty of blood of Matsukawabake. "
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The origins of Showa always seem vague. Other than that Showa was recognized as a variety in the late 1920s, that its sumi was independent of Bekko and its red was of different origin than Kohaku, I've not read much of anything about how Showa originally developed. This notion of a connection to an early form of Matsukawabake with the red of Asagi is interesting. NOTE: The article states that the Matsukawabake of today is quite different from the original, which is no longer to be found. Everything is improved, and thereby lost.
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