I thought I should review this knife, which I bought as a gift.
Purchased at K&S. James put an edge on it- not sure if it was because I told him it was a gift, but thanks.
It comes in a neat box, with a soft plastic sheath. The blade was oiled on delivery- Im not sure if James did that or it came like that from Tojiro.
It weighs about 230g. Satin finish looks buffered as one would expect in a mass produced knife. 242mm cutting edge. 48-49mm height. 2mm thick spine is mostly maintained until ~80% toward the tip, then there is a nice distal taper. It has a fairly flat spot for the first half of the blade with a gentle upward curve after that then quite a high tip (but nowhere near as much belly as a Shun or a Wustie). Not my favourite profile but probably more familiar to the recipient.
The grind is quite good, with a gentle convexity and reasonably thin behind the edge.
The F&F is not perfect, but given the price point, not too bad. The big yo handle isn't completely flush with the bolster or tang but this is being pretty picky. The spine and choil are downright sharp- quite uncomfortable but easy enough to fix with a bit or wet and dry.
I compared it to my Shiro Kamo Syousin Suminagashi, my current favourite all round knife.
On carrots, the Tojiro performed well but made its presence felt a little more in carrots than the Shiro Kamo, while also having slightly worse food release. On zucchini (courgettes), performance was similar but the Tojiro had slightly worse food release. On onion, both performed well but once again, food release was not as good with the Tojiro. Notably, the tip coped quite well with onion. On bacon (with rind), the knives were similar, the Tojiro maybe a touch less capable. Interestingly, the Tojiro had superior food release with bacon.
Overall, it's not as good as my Shiro Kamo (which is in itself a brilliant value knife) but is in the same ballpark, with a lower price.
I would have loved to compare it to my old Ryusen Blazen, but I don't have access to that knife at the moment.
I obviously can't comment on sharpening (James- can you?) or edge retention (but one would expect this to be substantial given that this is a PM tool steel).
I think that overall this knife is stellar value and a pretty good introduction to Japanese knives. A good grind, high tech steel and OK F&F. It does suit someone who is used to a German profile a little more than some knives. I guess the only caveats are that HSPS may not be the ideal steel to learn to sharpen on (but it is probably better than VG10 I suspect) and the spine & choil need a bit of attention (the spine was noticeably more uncomfortable than the Shiro Kamo).
Thanks for reading.