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 The Standard of Perfection of the Top View Ranchu

 

INTRODUCTION :              The Ranchu was developed and perfectioned in Japan.  The Ranchu came into being at the beginning of the Meiji Period (1870-1885).

                                               Even though there is no official Japanese Standard of Perfection for Goldfish, this Standard of Perfection is made according to the established Japanese norms.  This Standard of Perfection is constantly liable to adaptions if the norms change or evoluate in the land of origin.  It will never be the aim to handle norms which are contradictory with the norms in Japan.  The Ranchu is a Japanese Goldfish and this has to remain this way.

                                               As the Ranchu is a pondfish and is most often seen from above, the appreciation and judgement happens from above.

                                               On Japanese shows, the Ranchu is exhibited in white enameled bowls.

 

APPEARANCE :                   The general appearance of the Ranchu is very important.  It is necessary that there is a good balance between the head, the body and the tail.  The Ranchu should be able to swim in a powerful and elegant manner ; the movements should look easy and should be beautiful.

 

HEAD :                                  The head should be long, broad and rectangular.  The skull should be deep.

                                               The distance between the eyes or mehaba should be as broad as possible.  The distance between the eyes and the mouth  or mesaki should be as long as possible.  The eyes should be small and set in the right position ; neither too high nor too much forward.  The hood or wen is a thickening of the skin on the head.  Thanks to the hood the head gets a nice rectangular shape.  A good Ranchu has a hood that develops on the entire head, on the gills and around the eyes.

 

BODY :                                  Back

                                               The back should be wide.  The Ranchu has no dorsal fin.  The scales on the back are small and well arranged.

                                               When seen from the side, the line of the back should be perfectly curved from the end of the hood or wen until the beginning of the tail.  The last part of the back that is strongly curved is called sesagali.  The sesagali is very important with Ranchu.  Ranchu with a long back have a slowly curved

sesagali ; and Ranchu with a short back have a sharply curved sesagali.  The joint of the tail with the caudal peduncle should have an angle of 45°.

Abdomen

The abdomen should be symmetrical at both sides.

Caudal Peduncle

The caudal peduncle joins the body with the tail.  The caudal peduncle should be as wide and as robust as possible.  The caudal peduncle must not be too long nor too short.

The caudal peduncle is very important when judging the Ranchu.

 

SCALES :                               The scales should be small and well arranged.

 

TAIL :                                    The tail should be symmetrical and attached to the body in an elegant manner.  The tail should not be too wide.  The tail should be soft and elastic, not stiff.  When the Ranchu moves, the tail should be slightly shut inside ; when the fish stops, the tail should be open as if a flower opened.  This shut-in-and open movement is one of the most important points to evaluate the beauty of a Ranchu.  The tail should be small in size, but look big.

                                               There are three types of tail with the Ranchu : four-tail, three-tail and cherry blossem-tail

                                               The perfect tail is a four-tail.  The slit in the centre of the tail should be as narrow as possible so that the four-tail looks like a three-tail.  Thanks to this, the four-tail receives less presure when the fish swims.

                                               The bracelet or oza are the small scales around the caudal peduncle at the tail.  When seen from above, these scales are set like the pearls in a jewel neckless or bracelet.  The larger the bracelet, the stronger and the thicker the caudal peduncle.  The small scales of the oza should be well set like a bracelet or jewel.

                                               The end of the caudal peduncle, where the tail is joined to the body is called, ozuke or tail joint.  The ozuke should be symmetrical and should not slope down when seen from the side.

                                               The tail has the tail-shoulders or oshia left and right ; this is where the tail folds when the Ranchu swims.  The tail-shoulders should be symmetrical and should be straight until the end.

                                               The tail-core or oshin is the line that devides the tail in two even parts.  The tail-core should run through the centre and should not come in the bracelet or oza.  When seen from the side, the tail-core should not be too high nor too much down.

                                               The tail-tips or osaki should be round and bisymmetrical.  They should not be overlapping, curling or twisting.

                                               The tail-dish or ozara is the underside of the tail with the small scales.  The scales are small and well ordened.  The wider and the stronger the tail-dish, the more beautiful and the more powerful the tail.

 

FINS :                                    The pectoral fins, the ventral fins and the anal fins are small.

                                               The Ranchu can have one or two anal fins.  The ideal is a Ranchu with two anal fins, but a Ranchu with one anal fin is not a fault.  The anal fins should not be visible when seen from above.

 

Colours :                                The Ranchu can have the following colours :

-         The whole body and tail is deepred.

-         The whole body and tail is reddish yellow-orange.

-         A combination of red and white.

-         A combination of reddish yellow-orange and white.

-         Red scales with a white edge.

-         White.

 

SIZE :                                     When judging a Ranchu, the size should never be taken into consideration.

 

CONCLUSION :                   The Ranchu should be a beautiful, well balanced fish that can swim well.  A deformed Ranchu will never be beautiful and will swim fatiguing.

            One will see immediately, if a Ranchu is a good Ranchu

 

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TOP VIEW RANCHU APPRECIATION

The standards for Ranchus are very exacting, and they can be a little difficult for the Westerner to understand, because in explaining the ideals of Ranchu beauty, Japanese fanciers naturally refer to many concepts and objects that are a part of traditional Japanese culture. Though the Ranchu originated in the Chinese Lionhead, the aesthetic of the Ranchu is distinctly Japanese.

It is interesting to compare Ranchus to sumo wrestlers. People unfamiliar with sumo often think of the wrestlers as just big, fat, out-of-shape men with funny hairdos. Similarly, many people who see a Ranchu for the first time often see only a big, fat, out-ofshape fish with funny headgrowth. But once you become more familiar with either the wrestler or the Ranchu, you learn to appreciate their unique styles. The ideal Ranchu (and wrestler) has an imposing, solid build made up of massed circles and squares; its (or his) body has a strict balance and proportion dictated by a very demanding and distinct aesthetic. Both Ranchus and wrestlers are supposed to comport themselves with dignity and move with grace and power. Not coincidentally, Ranchu contests are organized and judged in the same way as sumo tournaments, and sumo wrestlers’ rankings are used to rank the fish, a topic we will explore further when we discuss Ranchu competitions.

 

The overall subjective principle by which Ranchus are judged is an elusive quality called aji. Aji literally means “flavor” or “taste,” as in the taste of food, but aesthetically speaking it means richness, evocativeness, character, gravity, power, weight, and depth. It suggests that the Ranchu has a deep and lasting beauty with so many distinctive, fine qualities that the viewer must take time to savor it fully. The Mona Lisa has aji, while Andy Warhol’s soup can, witty as it is, probably does not. Another quality often used in discussing Ranchus and other Goldfish is hin, “refinement or elegance,” but hin also suggests a lightness that is not really appropriate to Ranchus. Other terms of praise for Ranchus are takumashii, or “big and strong”; do-do shite iru, or “bold and imposing”; and yutaka (“rich” or “full”).

There is much talk among Japanese fanciers of the problems that arise from growing Ranchu too large too fast, and many lament that this significantly shortens a fish’s life span, resulting in a shortage of good older fish. But though they all lament this problem, they agree that big fish are more impressive and more likely to win in a competition. Still, some Ranchu clubs have gone so far as to establish separate categories for “Large-Size Fish” and “Normal-Size Fish” in the competitions they sponsor.

The most important objective principle of the Ranchu standard in Japan is not size, however, but balance and proper proportions. This is looked for first in the way the fish holds itself and swims, not only because the deportment of the fish is very important in itself, but also because it is believed deportment quickly reveals any faults in conformation that destroy the perfect balance and proportion that is the ideal.

It is impossible to overemphasize the importance that the Japanese place on the motion of the fish when swimming. It is a key element in judging Ranchus, and often the deciding factor in deciding contest rank. Every critical evaluation of a fish includes remarks about the way it swims. One of the words the Japanese use for the tail fin of a Ranchu is suso, which means the skirt or hem of a garment. They call the way the fish manages its tail fin suso sabaki. Sabaki means handling or man agement. Suso sabaki suggests the image of a woman gracefully managing the hem of her kimono as she walks with dignity and poise across a room.

A well-balanced fish holds itself evenly as it begins swimming in a smooth and effortless fashion. The tail fin should compress to move forward and then release, but the movement should not be strained or exaggerated. As it uses its tail to propel itself, it seems to be sliding gracefully yet powerfully through the water. A fish with faulty conformation will shake its body from left to right as it moves forward, or raise its tail and lower its head, even seeming to be pushing into the bottom of the vessel. Other faulty fish will have the head up and the tail down, or only be able to swim by frantically flapping their fins. These are all examples of unattractive deportment that also point to conformation faults.

In all discussions of the way a Ranchu swims, we must remember that they are judged in shallow bowls in which there is no current, and they are, as we have seen above, raised in ponds without current.

The Japanese are firm believers that the best view of Ranchus is from the top. The ideal Ranchu is often described as looking like an old Japanese coin called a koban with fins attached to it. This has led to a double misunderstanding in the West, where people speak of a coin-shaped back as a requirement for Ranchus. First of all, the koban (see below) is not a round coin. It is an elongated oval, almost a rectangle with rounded corners. Second, Japanese Ranchu fanciers are saying that the fish should look like a koban when seen from above, not from the side. This misunderstanding has created puzzlement among Western Ranchu collectors, who look at side views of Japanese champion fish and find their backs too long and not curved enough. The round fish with the excessively deep body that uninformed Western collectors regard as the ideal Ranchu, and which Chinese breeders are producing in large numbers, would be rejected as fat and graceless by the Japanese connoisseur. They disparagingly call such a fish a “potato.

 

When describing a Ranchu’s back seen from the side, the Japanese compare it to a traditional Japanese comb, which comes in two shapes: rather long, with rounded corners-like the koban coin-and shorter and rounder, closer to a round coin seen from the side, but still not as round as a quarter, dime, or nickel. Both of these shapes are accepted, the first known as “the long style” (nagate) and the second as “the round style” (marute).

 

Perhaps the most prominent feature of the Ranchu is the head (kashira). There must be sufficient space between the eyes, and from the eyes to the front of the head, and the gill cover should be “deep” -that is, extend quite far toward the tail. Headgrowth should seem to start from the bottom of the gill cover and move upward. Fish with broad foreheads and square noses generally produce better headgrowth.

 

 

Several different terms are used to describe headgrowth of different shapes.

• A dragon head (tatsugashira) Ranchu has imposing growth between the eyes, projecting forward symmetrically in two rounded shapes resembling traditional depictions of dragons in Chinese and Japanese art.

• Grape head (budogashira) describes headgrowth consisting of large, uniform, round growths over the entire head.

• A tokin is a kind of round cap worn by certain religious practitioners in medieval Japan; it looks a little like a pillbox hat. Fish with pronounced growth on the top of the head are described as tokingashira, or “cap head.” The presence of this tokin in young fish is believed to mark them as eventually growing to have the ideal, allround head growth called shishigashira.

• Binhari (also pronounced bimbari) describes a fish with heavy growth on the gill covers. It takes its name from a hairstyle popular in Japan in the 1700s, in which a woman’s side locks were puffed out by placing a whalebone support inside them.

• Finally, the shishigashira, or lion head, takes its name from the shishi, the mythical lion-dog of China and Japan (which looks a little like a giant Pekinese). A fish with heavy growth starting from the bottom and covering the entire head is called a shishigashira.

The eyes of a Ranchu should be placed evenly, neither facing up or forward, and should be small and cute, looking out from the headgrowth.

The stomach should sweep down in a smooth curve from the gill covers to the end of the abdomen (hara no tomari), in a rounded shape.

The back of the Ranchu, seen from above, should be broad and full, suggesting a heavy bone structure. The scales on the back should be regular and well aligned, and very shiny, with no dull areas. The width of the back should be uniform to the point called the koshi, or “hip” in Japanese-this is the point even with the end of the belly, just before the back starts to curve down to the tail-and then pull in just a bit. The sesagari, the curve from the koshi on down to the caudal peduncle (otsutsu), should be even and balance with the upward curve of the belly at this point.

The caudal peduncle should be short and thick and give the appearance of strength. The curve to the tail joint will differ depending upon the curve of the back up to the koshi, but the curve of the. caudal peduncle has a very important effect on the balance between it and the curve of the tail. The angle of the curve of the caudal peduncle is one of the most unique and expressive features of a Ranchu. When the curve is too shallow, the peduncle appears too long, and the length of the caudal peduncle tends to grow as the fish does, with undesirable results. In contrast, a fish with a strong, definite curve that continues down to the tail joint, which is also thick and strong, is unlikely to become unsightly as it grows.

The tail joint (ozuke) must be symmetrical when viewed from above, thick, and strong. The tail seat (ozara) is the small round area of scales underneath the tail fin, which can only be seen by turning the fish upside down. A large tail seat is desirable, because it means, of course, that the tail joint is thick. The scales of the tail seat should be small and regular, with the appearance of a brilliantly sparkling necklace. It is undesirable for the tail core or central ray (oshin) to extend into the tail joint more than one and one-half scales. This is called an “inserted” (sashikami) tail core. But this is not a serious fault and is found on many champion fish. It is true that when the tail core does project into the tail joint and the core is relatively thin, the tail often sits at a better angle and the fish has more of a feeling of stability. The tail core should be straight and symmetrical in both above and side views. An overlapping tail core is a fault.

 

The tail fins in general should be small but well displayed. Three tail shapes are acceptable: a triple tail (three lobe), a quadruple tail (foui.lobe), and what the Japanese call a “cherry-blossom tail” (sakuraa), which is essentially a triple tail with a slight indentation in the middle, so that the tail fin resembles the petal of a cherry blossom. The split of a quadruple tail should be narrow, so that the two halves remain close together.

“Triple” and “quadruple” refer to the number of lobes of the tail. Some Western standards specify that a triple tail (an unsplit tail with three lobes) is a disqualification, though this is not true in Japan.

Though the precise angle of the tail will depend on the curve of the fish’s back, in general it should be close to 45 degrees. The fins on either side of the tail core must be symmetrical. The tail should be of medium width, and each tail shoulder (okata) should be gently rounded, just about touching the end of the belly. When the fish swims it should compress its tail, and when it stops swimming, the tail should open again immediately, demonstrating a combination of firmness and beauty.

Though fish with single anal fins are acceptable in many contests in Japan, dual anal fins are preferred. A lack of anal fins is a disqualification. The two anal fins should be the same size and shape and set straight. They should not project beyond the caudal fin or the line of the belly.

Traditionally, color has not been a major factor in judging Ranchus, The most orthodox colors are pure red with clear or white tail-fin tips (su aka, or plain’red), and completely red, down to the tail-fin tips, which is called shojo. (The shojo is a mythical animal, a kind of mischievous sprite that loves to drink sake, and turns bright red when it gets drunk-making it a perfect name for an all-red fish.) But in recent decades fanciers seem to be showing more interest in red-and-white Ranchus in various patterns.

Finally, it is important to mention that different Ranchu clubs have slightly different standards.
Some may prefer a certain kind of headgrowth, for example, or a certain back shape. The standards discussed above, however, are the most generally accepted. I have also simplified them for the present discussion. One interesting Japanese work outlines “the sixty-three possible faults in a Ranchu,” which should give the reader an idea of the detail with which Japanese observe and appreciate their fish.

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Golden Rules for the Top View Ranchu Connoisseurs

1. Do not step ON or sit ON the edge of a pond with your shoes ON.
It is very rude for a ranchu connoisseur to step ON or sit ON the edge of a pond, belonging whether to a connoisseur or a dealer.
You should not smoke around a pond to keep ranchus either.

 2. Do not touch a ranchu of the others without permission.
After getting some experience and you can tell roughly how the back, lower back and the center of a tail are at first glance.
In general and when you want to have a look at a ranchu of the others, say such as “May I have a look at its back?”
After getting permission from the owner and touch the object.

 3. Do not beat the edge of a container.
Some people beat the edge of a container to see how a ranchu swims, that is and to see its condition.
However, when a ranchu swims after getting surprised and it does not show real condition. A ranchu swims when it gets used to a container or water.
It is very rude to the owner to beat the edge of a container.

 4. Do not criticise ranchus of other members.
Except when the owner asked and do not criticise ranchus of other people.
The owner feels good when someone praised its ranchus and the fruits of the utmost care.
ON the other hand and when someone pointed out any of their faults, even if they are true and it is displeasing to the owner.

 5. Do not criticise other societies of ranchu enthusiasts.
Each society has its own policy.

 6. Rules of buying ranchus

Societies of ranchu enthusiasts are for learning how to keep ranchus
as one of the Japanese traditional arts.
Do not make any unreasonable demand considering your own facility, environment and technique to keep ranchus.

7. Pay a charge for a ranchu immediately if possible when concluded the assignment.
If a ranchu died shortly after the assignment due to an illness,
it is not easy to pay in the deferred payment.
Keep the promise even if a ranchu died of an illness before payment.

8. Do not give or sell a ranchu and that purchased or given, to the third party without consent of the former owner.
Some people think they can do anything once a ranchu became their
possession.

It belongs to them and but at the same time a valuable property of the society. To get consent of the former owner is customary etiquette.

9. Do not ask others to temporarily keep your ranchu if possible.
It is easy to ask and but no easy task for the one asked to do so
even temporarily.
If you have no choice but to ask someone to temporarily keep your
ranchu and remember the following:

1) Even if your ranchu died of an illness or met an accident during that time and the person who you asked to keep has NO responsibility.

2) If you have to ask someone to temporarily keep your ranchu for some reason and arrange a reward (such as a reward for keeping) between you and the person beforehand.

10. Do not ask others to sell your ranchus.
Ranchus change very rapidly while keeping. Do not ask others to sell your ranchus once you acquired.

If you ask to dispose of your ranchus and it is etiquette to leave
the price entirely up to a dealer and to give a fee.