This walk around is part of my series of the Yujin Freshwater Fish series. Part of this will be repeating this same introductory and concluding info because copy-and-paste is easy, and it keeps things consistent.  So feel free to only read this once (or never...) as well as the stuff at the end. My main motivation is that Yujin does not have many walk arounds on this site, which is a shame because they make some great models. It is also an attempt to flood (!) the site with some fishes, because there simply have not been enough lately.

One other thing--when I give the lengths of the living species, I will be using the length given on the figure's paper for consistency. Some of them seemed off, but they seem close—often better than my original usage of the Fishbase TL (unless the FB one is more interesting...). When there are more than one, I will use the higher values. And the scales will be rounded and approximate!

So now, the fish!

This figure is the Bluegill, Lepomis macrochirus , number 26 from the second series. These are medium-sized relatives of the largemouth and smallmouth bass (Centrarchidae) that natural occurred in the US in many areas east of the Rocky Mountains. Like their larger-mouth cousins Bluegill are popular with anglers and as food fish, and so have been introduced to almost every continent—they are very adaptable, even capable of surviving brackish salinities. These introductions may have made anglers happy, but they are considered pests in many places that they have been released—and their inclusion in this set of mostly Japanese fish is mainly due to the massive damage they have wreaked in Lake Biwa. They can be adaptable feeders, primarily eating invertebrates and small fish but will not be choosy—another reason they can cause so much misery where they are introduced. The Yujin model gives a length of 40cm, which seems to be the largest size available.

This model measures 5.2cm long, giving a scale of 1:8. Like the Largemouth Bass, the Bluegill has a very complex colouring, in both the figure and the real fish. The overall colours of the fish is a light yellowish-green, fading from darker on the dorsal margin to white at the belly. There are dark vertical bands along the sides which extend about halfway down the body. Interspersed between these bands are thinner light-green bands that extend all the way to the belly. The fins are uniformly dark green; mine has the fins painted quite thick, so that they do not appear translucent like many Yujin fish fins. The head is a flat light green except for the white lower jaw. My model has a strange black mark on the upper lip, but I don't know if this has any basis in reality. The key colouring of a Bluegill—the blue or black spot on the trailing edge of the operculum—is painted a very bright blue or turquoise, with a black trailing edge; form photos that I have looked up, this seems a bit exaggerated, but does give a nice dash of colour! Overall it is a very bright figure—and a nice break for the dominance of the browns and greys of the Series II models. The base that this one is on is the brown large pebbles. Bluegills and their relatives do not show up much as figures; I am aware of the Replica Toy Fish 3" figure, but that may be it. There may also be other models, such as porcelain or glass figures, but I don't keep up with those.

Pictures:








I refer to this one as the bowhunting tournament pose--a hole in it, tossed on its back...but it's easy to see the detail that Yujin puts into every side of the models (and can often see the numbers in the photos). This is another one that I couldn't get the peg out of!


For those not familiar, the Yujin Freshwater fishes were released as two series of fish, for a total of 32 fish figures. This number includes at least 3 secret figures (whose numbers remain in sequence--all figures are marked somewhere with the number) but does not incorporate a number of re-issues and repaints; there was at least one complete reissue (from which mine all come so far). The original releases, from what I can find, had yellow papers; the second release used light blue for the Series I and black for Series II. The entire set, with all variants and secrets, is actually available as a boxed set on YAJ (for around $300!), but individual figures can be found there or even on eBay for a variety of prices (the secrets & specials are of course the most expensive). Myself, there are still two or three species I don't have, but I haven't put a lot of effort into changing that...

Another nice thing about these Yujin fish model is that, like most Yujin releases, almost all of them come with a natural base and acrylic stem to display them (the Series II has a few exceptions). There are 4 or 5 bases used, plus a few unique ones for some specials. When I received mine several years ago, the fish+acrylic stems were not directly associated with the bases, so I just went with whatever worked (so if you have one or two, and the base is different, now you know why--I couldn't find a way to be sure if the bases were specific). All of the bases are based on environment--wood stems, gravel, river rocks, silt+plants, that sort of thing. Most are monochromatic, but a few are painted differently (again, often for the specials). In fact, if I wanted to get really pedantic, the bases themselves are labelled with letters based on the style, but I won't.

Lovely replica of this species  .