Hello TCK! 



Huge NKD / SOTC I just got back from a three-week trip to Japan where my objectives were to eat great food, relax and buy great knives and ultimately I can’t say anything but mission accomplished. Weights of each knife will have to come later as I don’t own a scale. My trip took me through the following route (Tokyo-Niigata-Toyama-Kanazawa-Fukui-Osaka-Kyoto-Tokyo).



**Rule #5, from top left to bottom right.** 

1. Anryu Knives VG10 Petty 150mm
2. Masamune Swedish Steel Petty 150mm
3. MAC MK-40 Pairing knife 100mm
4. Tojiro Classic F808 VG10 Gyuto 210mm
5. Ashi W2 Petty 180mm
6. Tanaka Kyuzo W1 Migaki Petty 140mm
7. Hatsukokoro B2 Honesuki 145mm
8. Baba Hamono Kagekiyo W2 Petty 150mm
9. Fujiwara Maboroshi W1 Nakiri 165mm
10. Hitohira Tanaka Ren W2 Nakiri 180mm
11. Sakai Kikumori Kikuzuki Kasumi Kiritsuke Gyuto W2 210mm
12. Konosuke GS+ Gyuto 240mm 
13. Takada No Hamono Singetu Reika W2 Gyuto 210mm
14. Baba Hamono Kagekiyo B1 Gyuto 240mm
15. Konosuke Fujiyama FM W1 Gyuto 225mm



Chronological retelling of pickups

**Dec 5th**

I landed in Tokyo and headed straight over to Hitohira as I had messaged them prior about their **Tanaka-Ren Nakiri** and wanted to pick it up as soon as possible before someone else could snatch it up. The grind on this is absolutely ridiculous if you ask me and I have diced up a quick bolognese yesterday with it and it cuts like nothing else. It has a lovely heft to it, making it feel like you’re inching into tall Nakiri / cleaver territory. A banging purchase to kick it off. 



**Dec 11th** 

A goal of mine was to head over to **Takefu Knife Village** and take a look at their workshop, museum and giftshop. Travelers beware; if you are looking for carbon knives, don’t go to Takefu as about 6 out of 70\~ knives were carbon, and the rest were a mix of VG10, VG5 and others. That being said, I wanted to pick up something from there and the **Anryu Petty** was a standout to me. VG10, pretty blade, felt great in the hand and for a pretty reasonable price.



A tip if you want to go to [Takefu Knife Village Santoku making classes](https://tkvstore.net/?category_id=62cb91179b47bf54eea80e9d); they create appointments based on interest, so if you are traveling to in about 5-6 months and want to create your own Santoku, reach out to them **early** so they can create a booking in their calendar.



**Dec 14th**

I spent some time running around Osaka, making sure to visit Sakai Ichimonji as they had a natural whetstone event together with the Natural Whetstone and Hone Museum which had a great presentation on the history of natural whetstones, what makes Japan a great place for mining them and their cultural significance. It allowed for some really nice hands-on practice with the whetstones and I ended up picking something for myself! 



I also ended up purchasing two knives for some family members. My dad wanted a versatile knife that he and his partner could use and Tojiro was right there in the SenNichiMae DoguyaSuji street, so I picked up the **210mm Classic**. They also had hand engraving for a cheap price (1100 yen for hand engraving) which added a nice touch. 



Later in the evening I ran by Osaka Tower Knives to check out their stores, given I was heading to Sakai the following day I was hesitant but I couldn’t resist picking up two of the **MAC MK-40** since they’re super fun and also a perfect souvenir bargain for my brother. Special shoutout to Daniel @ OTK for a great demo of the knife, getting to chat knives and mess about with some of his favorites blades in the store right before closing! 



**Dec 15**

Big Sakai day. Feeling pressure of showing up early to see if Takada-san had some stock, I did my due diligence and showed up early and was first in line outside his workshop. 



A quick note on resellers. Takada has made it very clear he does not want to associate or sell to resellers and the two people next in line made it clear to me that they could purchase knives and allow me to buy it from them at a later date. I did not confront them before opening but I did make it clear to Takada that they were there for that reason and showed some of my google translate conversation history as proof. 



I got to take a look at a number of lovely knives, including some beautiful damascus Gyuto VG10 240mm, but I opted for my **Singetu Reika** which felt incredible in my hand! My personal holy-grail hunt for TnH Suiboku Damascus continues in the future!



After TnH, I joined up with I-Jung and Yuchun, two fellow TCKers that I met in line and we headed over to Konosuke. When we arrived, they had two incredible examples of the LI and BY on showcase but my eyes drifted to the refurbished FM they had put out. Ill confess that when I initially reached out to Konosuke, I did compliment their FM line specifically but did not ask about stock, so it felt very serendipitous to have it appear in their showroom. I skipped out of there with the **Fujiyama FM**.



Baba Hamono up next! With my TnH and Konosuke pickups, I wanted to pick up a nice **Kagekiyo petty** and did so in W2! When we later came back to pick up the knives after getting handles mounted, they were generous enough to show off their workshop where Nishida-san and Wakae-san were working hard preparing the next batch of knives. I kept looking over at the 240mm Gyutos and moved on. 



Kawamura Hamono was up next, which if you did not know, is the establishment where Sakai Kikumori is based out of. After TnH and Konosuke, I (thought I was done with Gyutos and asked if they had a Choyo Petty, but they ended up having sold out of every size of petty for all their lines. Instead, they had a **Kiritsuke Gyuto** that had the most minor beauty mark in the shinogi and was offering it for a bargain. After a quick ATM-run, I added it to the ever growing shopping bag. 



Ashi Cutlery Works was last on the list in Sakai and we ubered over and was a little bit confused. Even less than other places, Ashi does not feel like a place that receives customers but after being confused for a few minutes, we stepped in and took the stairs to their office where the staff received us. They did not have any 150mm Petty knives in stock, but instead whipped out a 120mm and a 180mm. The **180mm Petty** was very quickly snapped up.



Back in central Osaka, I headed over to Ginka Hamono and picked up their **Hatsukokoro Honesuki** that was on display at a very fair price and filled a gap in my wishlist.



After being finished in Sakai, later in the same week I was sitting in Kyoto dealing with some FOMO as I left Sakai without a true 240mm, so I did some napkin math and took the train back to pick up the **Konosuke GS+** and **Baba Hamono Kagekiyo B1 240mm**. Truly it’s cheaper to spend time and effort going back to Sakai compared to regretting not picking something up when I’m back in Sweden, right?

  
**Dec 21**

My final week in Tokyo began and I headed down to Kamakura to satisfy a small, touristy purchase. The Masamune family is still active to this day and makes knives and blades south of Tokyo and being a gamer first, history fan second, I felt like the **Masamune Petty** was a perfect, selfish souvenir to bring back home.



I also want to shout out **Morihei** as THE place to get your whetstones in Tokyo. I did not pick up anything this time but I promised that when I come back, im picking up something. That place is special. 



I was looking to pick up a smaller petty and the staff at Hitohira showed off the lovely **Kyuzo 140mm K-tip petty**. 



The final full-day of my trip in Japan I wanted to check out Fujiwara and see if they had any stock, since most of the time I hear that they’re low on stock. I was surprised with very well-filled cabinets and happily got to take a look at their knives. At their current prices, the **Maboroshi** line is the only one I can feasibly defend a purchase for, and it felt better when I was standing in the shop and could hand-check each knife that was being sold, since their somewhat lack of consistency, especially in handles being mounted straight, was showing itself off. I walked away with a **Maboroshi W2 Nakiri 165mm**. 



With the stress in my head of leaving Japan with more knives than what a customs officer could consider reasonable, I closed out my Japan trip. Some final mentions. 



* Thank you to the TCK community for being an amazing place to learn and encourage others to get deeper into this rabbit hole. It’s been wonderful being introduced and educated by the likes of u/TEEEEEEEEEEEJ23 , u/Ok-Distribution-9591 and many many more.
* Thank you to u/Ichimonji_JP for being amazing during the whetstone workshop and translating the presentation live for my sake. 
* Thank you to everyone in Sakai if you happen to see this. I couldn’t ask for more generosity in spirit than I experienced walking around talking with everyone in their showrooms and workshops.
* Thank you to the staff at Hitohira in Tokyo for being the best knife shop in Tokyo. Can’t say enough great things about these people.
* Bonus pictures from the Sakai Ichominji whetstone workshop, behind the scenes at Baba Hamono and Takada-san inspecting my Fujiyama FM after we swung back around to pick up some extra merchandise (tote bag). 

More cooking posts/knife reviews to follow as I slowly work through these beauties in the new year.  
See you in 2026!

Went to Japan but bought extra luggage - NK(s)D / SOTC