Learn to Select Showa: Live Premiere Sunday 7pm

Tomorrow night Ricky premieres a video built to teach rather than to show off: a full selection of a batch of Nogami Showa, nine bowls of six fish, where viewers make their own choices before Ricky reveals his.

Showa are the most interesting variety in koi and the hardest to read. Finished or unfinished, sumi up or sumi still to come, a pattern that looks messy today and stunning in two years: this is where most people get it wrong, and where the real value gets missed. So rather than talk about it, Ricky does it on camera, fish by fish, and explains every decision as he goes.

How the Showa selection works

Each bowl comes up on screen and viewers get a moment to study it and decide which fish they'd keep and which they'd release. Ricky then makes his picks and walks through the reasoning: body and structure first, then skin and beni, then what the sumi is saying about where the fish is heading, and pattern last. After each bowl, you'll know exactly how your eye compared to his. There's no right or wrong, but by the end you'll look at Showa differently.

What decides a Showa's value

Along the way you'll see the things that decide what a koi is actually worth. The fish that looks unfinished and is Ricky's number one of the day. The "beat the breeder" fish that get overlooked because they're so raw. Beni stretched by fast growth and green water. A touch of secondary colour that takes a would-be best-in-batch fish out of the running. A deformity that ends a fish's commercial future on the spot. Every fish released is explained, and none of it is hidden.

The Nogami Showa bloodline

Nogami Koi Farm is one of the original Dainichi OB Kai, and this Showa line traces back to the late Ikarashi Kazuto on the female side, with males from Dainichi Toyota. Ricky was in Japan for the first selection on this very spawning, and this is the first time he has been able to grow a batch of them on as a group. Having done work experience and a homestay at Nogami, and grown up alongside the family, he knows the mentality behind these fish, and it shows.

Watch the premiere

Join the premiere live at 7pm on Sunday 13 September, bring your opinions to the chat, and let Ricky know how many you got right in each bowl.

Whether you buy from Ricky or from anyone else, the aim is simple: understand what adds value to a koi and what takes it away, so you get the very best fish available for the budget you're working with.