The six koi in the pond
Every koi in Koi Drift is painted after a real variety that koi keepers have bred for more than a century. Six of them swim in the pond. Here is who they are, where their names come from, and — because this is a puzzle — how each one behaves under your finger.
Kohaku — red on white
Kohaku is the variety most people picture when they hear the word koi: a clean white body with patches of red. In Japanese the name simply means “red and white”. Breeders judge a Kohaku on the snow-whiteness of the base, the depth of the red, and the way the red sits on the back in a few large, well-separated steps rather than a scatter of spots. A famous saying among keepers is that koi keeping begins with Kohaku and ends with Kohaku, because the pattern looks simple and is the hardest to get right.
In the pond it is the koi you meet first, and the lore line on its Daily card says so: red on white, the first pattern every drifter learns to read. Against the teal water it is the easiest of the six to see, which is exactly why the early ponds are full of them. When a board looks crowded, find the Kohaku and start there; your eye already knows where it is.
Yamabuki — the gold one
Yamabuki Ogon is a single-coloured metallic koi the colour of yamabuki, the Japanese kerria flower, a bright yellow-gold. The Ogon family are prized for their sheen: a good one looks like it has been dipped in metal, and it catches whatever light is on the pond. In a garden pond a Yamabuki is often the fish visitors notice first because it flashes when it turns.
The game keeps that quality. The Yamabuki sprite carries the strongest highlight of the six, and the water’s caustic light plays across its back more visibly than on any other. On the card it is a gold koi; where it swims, the water looks like late afternoon. When two koi are close together and you need to tell in a hurry which is which, the gold one is the reference point.
Platinum — all silver
Platinum Ogon is the Yamabuki’s pale cousin: the same metallic scale, with no colour at all. A good Platinum is a clean, even silver from nose to tail. It is a beautiful fish and, in bright water, a slightly difficult one — it reflects the sky and can vanish against a light bottom.
That difficulty is in the game on purpose. The Platinum is the koi that is easiest to lose sight of in bright water, and on the paler pond floors it really is the one you will overlook. It is not a trick; it is the same thing a keeper experiences leaning over a real pond at noon. Slow down when a board has several Platinums, and check the edges of the pond, where they tend to sit against the pebbles.
Benigoi — deep red
Benigoi is a koi of a single, deep red — the colour of the red in a Kohaku, but covering the whole body. There is no white to frame it, so the judgement is about the evenness of the red and the shape of the fish. It is a calm, solid presence in a pond and rarely the flashiest fish, but it is the one that photographs well.
The card puts it plainly: deep red from nose to tail; it never hides, and never hurries. In play a Benigoi is as easy to see as a Kohaku but reads as heavier; on a dark pond floor it is the most visible koi of all. Nothing about it is special mechanically — it swims straight, bends, or pauses like any other — but it is the koi most players remember from a particular pond, which is why it appears on so many Daily cards.
Karasu — the crow
Karasu means “crow”, and the Karasugoi is a black koi — black back, black fins, sometimes a paler belly. Black koi were the ancestors of every coloured variety: the wild carp kept in the rice-terrace ponds of Niigata were dark fish, and the first Kohaku were mutations from them. A Karasu in a modern pond is a reminder of where the rest came from.
In Koi Drift the Karasu is black as still water at dusk; read its path twice. That last phrase is the practical advice. On the darker pond floors the Karasu is the koi whose bend direction you will most often misjudge, because the small marks on its head — the bend arrow, the pause mark — have less contrast against black. Take the second look the card asks for, especially in Watchers and beyond, where a wrong read costs a heart.
Showa — three colours in one body
Showa Sanshoku, usually just Showa, is a black-based koi with red and white laid over it. It takes its name from the Showa era in which the variety was fixed (the 1920s onward). Together with Kohaku and Sanke it makes up the “big three” of koi shows. A Showa is judged on the balance of the three colours and on the black wrapping around the body rather than sitting on top.
It is the busiest pattern in the pond, and in a puzzle that is a real property: a Showa draws the eye. Players report tapping the Showa first even when a Platinum next to it had the clearer path. Notice the habit and use it — when you are stuck, find the Showa, then deliberately look at the fish beside it.
Why the colours are the puzzle
Koi Drift has one rule: a koi leaves the pond only when its whole path to the edge is clear. The colours never change that rule. What they change is how quickly you can see the board. A pond of six Kohaku is read in a glance; a pond that mixes Platinum and Karasu on a pale floor with a Showa in the middle takes a second, and in the later tiers a predator’s lane is turning from orange to red while you take it. The varieties are a real koi keeper’s catalogue, but they are also the game’s difficulty, hiding in plain sight.
The Daily card that the game draws when you clear the day’s pond names one of these six — the one the date picks from the koi that were in your pond — and prints its lore line. Over a few weeks the six become familiar the way they do to anyone who has stood at a pond edge for long enough.