I've had a fair bit of experience with helping out a left handed chef tweak his blades. It's a tricky bit. Even though they aren't single bevel blades, a lot of the Japanese "western style" knives still follow the traditional Japanese style of the left side being flat, 90 degrees to the spine and the right side is the side with the bevel that tapers to the edge. I happen to like this a lot, but I'm a right handed person, so it's not exactly an issue. What I've noted is that if you find a Japanese blade which has a V grind or "Western style" grind where both sides of the blade are tapered to the edge, you'll probably be happier. There's a certain ahem, knife seller, who contracts with a Mass. based knife company to make Japanese inspired blades. These have a V-grind. My friend has been very happy with them, as he doesn't have to do anything to the knives. He can use them out of the box without any modifications. I have a very strong preference for the flat left side, so I don't really care for them, but he's found a solution which doesn't require a lot of modification or the cost of a special order lefty blade. Through my experience with him, I've observed that the beefier the Japanese knife, the more issues he would have, even if I applied a bevel to the left side of the blade. The lasers were far less problematic. He'd have a little trouble here and there, but putting a little bit of a relief bevel on the left side seemed to dramatically improve the performance for him and he'd be quite happy with the performance until he'd sharpen away enough of the blade to make it a bit thick behind the edge. Stick to thinner blades and/or blades with thin profiles behind the edge and you'll probably be pretty happy. Think Carter, any of the lasers, Blazen, etc.