CR,

Honestly, none of us (the Ipoh group) is not good enough to tell what the potential is. What we can do is eliminate the bad pieces which has obvious deformations. This is only our 3rd year keeping ranchu. There're still thousand and one things we need to learn. Some fish might be very appealing to us but it is a total failure to old hands and some, we might say it is an ugly one yet they shown interest. The old hands has something we still don't have.

Like our sensei told us, with his many many years of experiences, we can't learn it overnight. At this stage, we polish up our skill and slowly, we'll know what we want. The Ipoh fellas (except me, I only join occasionally.) always gather for kopi session and discuss non-stop on grooming issues. This is the way we improve. Try out multiple methods and share it with others. Eventually, we'll learn from the experience.

For this case, everyone can choose the most balanced fish to bring home. But in actual fact, is it the right fish to pick? only for those with years of experience can tell. Not forgetting that, Ranchu is known to have 7 changes is its' whole process of growing up. What are the 7 changes, our sensei didn't tell us, it is up to us to find out. So, possible, there'll be many ugly duckling hanging around. For those which has deformations, definitely will be culled off. What's left behind is like a normal blank piece of paper. The art work we put on it will only define if the piece of paper is a good piece of artwork. About THE RARE SUPER RANCHU that you are referring to, is just another piece of high quality blank paper. So, in my opinion, it still need our skill to groom it to a masterpiece. For example, what we are having, it's like photocopy quality A4 paper that we use in office. And the ultimate ranchu might be some kinda of photo printing paper. If we put them in a old dot matrix 9DPI printer... you can imagine what's the result on comparison.

So, in short, don't mind the paper but upgrade the printer. Along the way, paper you choose will be in better quality cos you already know all about your printer. And, none of our printer is the same model, so choosing technique might be quite different.

Fact:
One master cull off some ranchu and another master took some home and groom it to be a champion.

Why?
Cos their have different printer and those paper does not suit the former but it is compatible to the other.

So,
It is all up to you on what you pick cos you know yourself best. If there's 2 photo printing paper given to you but choose one only. Both USD100/piece, almost the same spec. Both has strength and weakness, only if you know your printer well, you can make the right choice.

Therefore,
To explore what I have, I picked all long bodies see what I can do. Maybe next year, I'll take the medium/short bodies. Another year later, I only might know what I actually want. Time will tell. Patience is one of the essence that win you a game in the Ranchu world.....


Cheers.

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Japanese Ranchu is another ball game