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Grass Puffer (Yujin - Freshwater Fishes Series 2, second release)

Started by sbell, July 12, 2015, 06:24:02 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 Grass Puffer (AKA Sunafugu, meaning Sand Puffer in Japanese), Takifugu niphobles , number 30 from the second series. This is the only pufferfish in the whole series, a family of immediately recognizable fish well-known for taking in air or water to make themselves much larger, as a defense mechanism. They are also well-known as a bad idea for a delicacy, and the toxin in some of their organs is decidedly and immediately lethal if improperly prepared! These are smaller puffers, found from Japan through the Koreas and China to Vietnam. They are primarily marine, but appear to come in to brackish or even far upstream freshwater environments, possibly as a means to remove or weaken parasites. They are predatory fish, using their strong beaks to consume invertebrates including shelled molluscs. The Yujin model gives a length of 12cm, but apparently can reach up to 25cm.

This model measures 5.5cm long, giving a scale of roughly 1:2 (1:5 with the longest possible length). The Grass Puffer is in a normal swimming pose, uninflated at moving forward. It has a basic crème colour body, with a light brown dorsal colouring that breaks into light brown dots along the sides. Over the head, from the eyes to the beak, the dorsal surface is a light olive green. There are two dark brown bands across the dorsal surface, one behind the eye and one roughly midway between the first band and the dorsal fin. There is a tiny dark brown blotch at the base of the dorsal fin and a small blotch at the base of the tail. The fins are translucent orange or yellow. The beak is well defined on the all-white mouth (mine appears to have a paint chip!) with the mouth slightly open. The eyes are big and bulbous, with green pupils on dark backgrounds. This is the last Yujin freshwater fish with a base, in this case a brown gravel one with a plant. There are definitely other Grass Puffer models out there, as always made by Japanese companies—at least, for sure by Kaiyodo (I have one). For puffers and their relatives overall, puffers are sort of popular due to their familiar appearance and cartoony look (despite being nasty predators!) and get made as all sorts of toys, from bath toys to models and figures.

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 also the only other double I currently have in the set, and once again I could not get the peg out, so it is fortunate I have the spare to photograph from underneath!


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 cool figure of Tetraodon family  ^-^. The seaweed is a good point  ^-^.
My website: Paleo-Creatures
My website's facebook: Paleo-Creatures

brontodocus

This one is so much better than its Furuta Choco Egg Wild Animal Series 4 counterpart! :)

sbell

Quote from: brontodocus on July 14, 2015, 09:33:35 AM
This one is so much better than its Furuta Choco Egg Wild Animal Series 4 counterpart! :)

It really is, smaller than the Kaiyodo though.

sbell

This is a photo set to compare the figures from the First & Second release of the Series II Grass Puffer Takifugu niphobles, number 30 in the series.

As will be seen in any of these 1 & 2 comparisons, the Release 1 figures tend to have a simpler paint job, with far less nuance to them. In many instances the patterns and details are simplified, in particular markings and the face region. The fins are also often left with less colour or pattern.

In the Grass Puffer, the most obvious difference is the distinct white spots in the Release 1, which become subtler dark brown spots in Release 2, and the mouth area is painted more distinctly.

Comparisons (R2 on the left, R1 on the right):






And because Kevin hasn't been out for a swim for a while.