To be honest, Kato knife's Kanji is like wrriten by a 5 year old kid.

[Soccerman]

I know most of people here are not Asian, and because no one mentioned here before, I just wanna point out that Kato knife's kanji is so ugly that makes me laugh when I first saw his knife.
And take a look of other knives, like shigefusa(重房）， Yoshikazu Ikeda's brand 堺北辰，nenohi子の日, the engraving beauty on these knives always impresses me.
書道 originally from Chinese 書法, is a calligraphy, it's a form of art, it needs both long time hard practice and talent.
Based on an Asian's view, the kanji on kato's knife is really a joke. It's really hard to imagine an old man writing characters so childish.

Imagine this, you let your 5 year old kid engrave a name on a legendary Kyle Royer Bowie, do you think it's a proud thing? or it just makes the knife look stupid?

 

[aboynamedsuita]

Sell all your Katos to me

 

[jessf]

Pics or it didnt happen.

 

[aboynamedsuita]

Is this the Yoshiaki Fujiwara (Kiyoshi Kato) Kato? I know there is another "Kato" who makes a Masakage line. When I (and I also presume most others) say/hear Kato I am thinking of the former and not the latter.

While I'm neither Asian nor can I appreciate the nuance of kanji calligraphy, I think that the kanji on Kato knives looks pretty cool, due to the boldness and amount of it. I want a single bevel Kato just so I can have all of the extra characters on the blade as a showpiece; I'm a lefty, so finding a lefty Kato would be very unlikely

 

[Soccerman]

I mean the water quench technique Kato, it's not cool. every 5 year kid writes like this in east Asia...

If you dont believe me, try this, go find a Chinese or a Japanese, show him the pic of 堺北辰 and 藤原良明作, let him judge.

If I wrote like Kato in elementary school, my parents wouldnt let me slept until I can figure it out how to write.

 

[brainsausage]

I mean the water quench technique Kato, it's not cool. every 5 year kid writes like this in east Asia...

How do you feel about Picasso's work?

 

[Soccerman]

How do you feel about Picasso's work?

Not valid point, here we are talking about Asian culture 書道 or 書法, based on this, Kato's kanji is ugly.

I don't judge Picasso, if I really wanna say something about Picasso, I would learn some knowledge about Western painting first.

 

[aboynamedsuita]

This Kato?

 

[Soccerman]

take a look #5 on this page. yes that's what i mean

 

[Johnny.B.Good]

You mean the characters are poorly formed? Grammar? Not sure I understand the criticism.

 

[Zweber12]

Shows some confidence your knife work if you have your 5 year old engrave the knives for you. You can argue on style all you want. Any how, from my collection, kanji details of my yanagiba for comparision:

 

[youkinorn]

looks like it's more about the tools used to do the engraving than it is his penmanship.

 

[easy13]

Please tell us some of your favorite kanjis to cut with then

 

[Soccerman]

looks like it's more about the tools used to do the engraving than it is his penmanship.

no, it's not the tool, he doesn't know how to write beautiful characters, beautiful hand writing means long time hard practice, maybe he's not interested into this, ,but such poor handwrting really sucks on a knife.

 

[Soccerman]

Please tell us some of your favorite kanjis to cut with then

I already said at first, shigefusa(重房）， Yoshikazu Ikeda's brand 堺北辰，nenohi子の日, these kanjis are amazing, you can tell the person who engraved them really can do the job.

 

[aboynamedsuita]

This thread is interesting to me because I would have never known, thanks for the enlightenment. That aside, I think this may lend itself to an aspect of F&F inasmuch as Kato is better known for performance

 

[Ruso]

tjangula, what a show off

I love how Kato Kanji looks. It's pure amazingness. Perhaps, the calligraphy is poor, but it's not something I understand or really care about. I view Kanji as a trademark rather than a handwritten show-piece.

P.S. If somebody wants to get rid of their Kato because of that, PM me

 

[aboynamedsuita]

tjangula, what a show off

I love how Kato Kanji looks. It's pure amazingness. Perhaps, the calligraphy is poor, but it's not something I understand or really care about. I view Kanji as a trademark rather than a handwritten show-piece.

I don't have the kikuryu anymore, but still have the other four. Also have two others at JKI that'll be coming my way in due course.

 

[aboynamedsuita]

P.S. If somebody wants to get rid of their Kato because of that, PM me

hey, I had first dibs as the earliest reply to the thread lol :nunchucks:

 

[Mute-on]

The handwriting of most doctors and surgeons is typically illegible as well. Thankfully this does not impair their ability to diagnose illness or save lives in surgery.
Hmmmm ...
And no, you can not have my Katos with childish kanji. I like them just the way they are

 

[malexthekid]

The handwriting of most doctors and surgeons is typically illegible as well. Thankfully this does not impair their ability to diagnose illness or save lives in surgery.
Hmmmm ...
And no, you can not have my Katos with childish kanji. I like them just the way they are

Add engineers to that list... personally being one and having read a lot i think surgeon's/doctor's handwriting looks like perfect calligraphy in comparison

 

[WildBoar]

My handwriting/ letterng is poor, too. But it doesn't mean I can't do my engineering work properly. The guy crafts and sells knives, not writing samples. So maybe he got a 'needs improvement' mark in penmanship all through elementary school, and was lashed by his parents with a wet noodle when each report card arrived. Heck, maybe they even forced him to spend hour after hour trying to improve his writing characters, but it just didn't result in much improvement. All that is important to most here is that he gets an 'A' in knifemaking.

Yeah, I get that I am not from an asian culture and therefore do not understand how people can connect one thing with something else that is unrelated. Thankfully things like that do not bother me.

 

[JBroida]

i think what he's trying to say is more along the lines of this... say you bought a brand new corvette. Its a pretty sweet car. Drives great, has pretty cool design, etc. Now imagine it came with this kind of paint job:

It has nothing to do with the performance of the car, but it looks funny, right?

 

[Ruso]

Your comparison is not that great. We are not talking about the finish of the knife, just the Kanji. It's more like if Corvette "flag logo" would look not as "sharp"....

 

[chinacats]

You guys are great...I can't even identify knives I've owned in the past (ok, maybe present either) by kanji...but I could tell if it cut the same.

I would say that I definitely preferred Shigefusa kanji and in fact it may be one of the few I can identify--all because of that one character that reminds me of a fish hook

And just so I contribute more than my ignorance, I'll add a pic of my favorite kanji...mainly because it seems a bit different...it would probably look better if I took the dust off first, but it's stainless and therefore doesn't see much use.

 

[pkjames]

the kanji engraving does take part in a lot of Asian customer's decision making. I personally think Ino-san's engraving (he is based in sakai and does engraving work for a few different brands) is some of the best currently available

 

[JBroida]

Your comparison is not that great. We are not talking about the finish of the knife, just the Kanji. It's more like if Corvette "flag logo" would look not as "sharp"....

better?

:razz:

 

[AFKitchenknivesguy]

While I don't have the expertise to identify bad kanji, I do find it interesting coming from a culture that values the art of perfection. Using doctors, engineers, and other professionals is a bad comparison to the original argument. Yes, we know what you mean but the OP is basing his opinion on culture, not profession.

 

[panda]

i don't get why you even care about the engraving. i would prefer to not have anything on there. do you stare at it while you cut? or do you not even use the knives, but hang it up and think that you are super cool?

 

[Devon_Steven]

Sounds to me like the OP deserves a lot more respect than this.