Japanese Perch (Yujin - Freshwater Fishes Series 2, second release)

[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 Japanese Perch (also known as Aucha perch or Oyanirami in Japan), Coreoperca kawamebari ), number 19 from the second series. This is a small-sized predatory perch that lives rivers and streams. Often in the middle parts of the water column hunting for invertebrates and anything else. They are found in southern Korea and parts of Japan, although they have been introduced to non-native regions of Japan as well. They are aggressively solitary (except as fry) and there is a big eye spot on the gill cover that is used in disputes between adults. The Yujin model gives a length of around 35cm, but most sources I could find said 11-13cm.

Note—I do not have a model of #18, the Honmoroko, Gnathopogon caerulescens . Maybe someday. The second release one is kind of neat, if I could hunt one down.

This model is about 6 cm long, making the figure roughly 1:6 scale; using the more frequently found average length of 12cm, the figure is closer to 1:2 scale. Given the very complex colours and patterns of the Japanese Perch, the paint scheme is very close to the real thing, with an excellent base of crème-color overlain by numerous dark brown bands. The ventral surface also has a number of thin horizontal reddish-ochre stripes from pectoral to vent. On the face, there are several stripes radiating from the back of the eye, fading from brown at the top of the head to a more reddish-ochre toward the jaw. The fins are translucent, almost transparent, with lots of little blue-white spots. The one feature that almost seems played down is the gill spot—this spot can be very large, bigger than the eye itself, but on the figure is light grey om one side and red & grey on the other, and a little smaller than the eye. Perhaps the model is meant to evoke a sub-adult or subordinate individual? Despite the small size, the figure does a good job of evoking the attitude that these fish have. The base is the raised vertical rock (probably the least appropriate base, given their habitat preference). Whereas this rock is grey in the Series I models, this one and most others from Series II appear to be grey with a brownish wash, which looks more natural. The Japanese Perch has shown up a few other times, as always from Japanese companies. There are at least 2 or 3 Kaiyodo models, and could be others as well.

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). It may be obvious, but I couldn't the acrylic peg out of this one, so it may be a little more apt than normal to call this one a bow-hunting target.


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.

[Jetoar]

Really good colors aplication  .