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Largemouth Bass (Yujin - Freshwater Fishes Series 2, second release)

Started by sbell, July 04, 2015, 06:23:15 AM

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sbell

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 Largemouth Bass, Micropterus salmoides , number 25 from the second series. These are large freshwater bass naturally found in the Mississippi River system of North America. However, they are popular sport fish and have been released in many parts of the world, including, of course, Japan. Like the Northern Snakehead, Largemouth Bass are large, voracious predators, and if conditions are suitable, can become established and spread quickly. Once this happens, the effect on natural populations is intense. Interestingly, a related species, Micropterus dolomieu , the Smallmouth Bass, is also invasive in Japan, but Yujin didn't make a model of this one (Kaiyodo recently did though!); it is not, however, the only Yujin centrarchid as we'll see!. The Yujin model gives a length of 60cm, but several other online sources gave larger total lengths, including one (Fishbase) stating of 97cm (which seems insanely large)!

This model measures 6.5cm long, giving a scale of 1:9 with the Yujin value; using the longest length of 97cm, the scale would be more like 1:15. The colouring of the model I very complex, with a lighter crème base colour and a range of darker and lighter brown and olive green washes darkening from the dorsal surface to the belly. This is punctuated with several dark black bands down each side and lighter brown horizontal stripes across each cheek. The fins are a translucent dark olive colour. The most notable feature is the large, open mouth—a big cavern with white lips and painted pink inside. There is some sculpting of the roof of the mouth, but not much. Between the mouth and the big gold eye, this model is a small reminder of a powerful predator. The base that this one is on is the vertical rock face, except in light brown. Largemouth Bass have shown up a few times as models, not only from other Japanese makers like Kaiyodo and  Kinto-Favorite, but also ones with American connections (of course, given the natural range). These include Replica Toy Fish Company, New Ray, and a recent large figure from Safari Ltd, plus I'm certain of a few more generic bass-like fish from cheaper companies.

Pictures:





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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).


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.


brontodocus

Wonderful figure! 8) Both species, M. salmoides and M. dolomieu, have also been introduced to Europe.

sbell

Quote from: brontodocus on July 06, 2015, 10:55:36 PM
Wonderful figure! 8) Both species, M. salmoides and M. dolomieu, have also been introduced to Europe.

I live in a place where they've tried, but it's just cold enough--so far--that they can't get established. To the west of the Rockies, though, I've caught various centrarchids that don't belong there, including largemouth bass.

Jetoar

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