Older thread, yes, but since nobody has followed up, here is something for the search:
Here's a review of their yanagiba on a german forum
http://www.messerforum.net/showthread.php?127149-Bericht-Nakagoshi-Hocho-Sashimi, which says the knife is pretty much alright for the price. Mentions that the reviewer didn't find the factory edge perfect.
I have their usuba by now (ordered other stuff from the retailer, and couldn't resist trying, against some advice given here
, and my experience is similar: knife is decent as far as I can judge, though the ura "borders" do not look very regular to me (as in, what gets polished of the ura on a flat stone ... and yes I made sure I used a flat one there
.
It definitely did not come perfectly sharpened out of the box, and it took quite some work to get it satisfactorily sharp, so it probably is sold "unopened".
A sharpie marker test (before taking it to any stone) instantly showed even abrasion down from the shinogi line, so there seems to be no hamaguri grind to speak of. A makeshift laser deflection test showed prominent reflections between 6 and 8 degrees (the 8 degrees likely from a microbevel). Followed up on that when sharpening it (snug against the blade road for most of the time, then going a spaghetti above it, intermittently grinding ura flat, setting as little as possible of a bevel when deburring ura. Sure I will still have made some horrible mistake...)
Once sharpened, I found the performance great (from my perspective), thin and sharp, astonishingly resilient edge. Hadn't read above review for a while before trying my knife, find it interesting my experience was similar (good, OOTB edge not great, becomes very sharp).
The jigane is not stainless.