When I started accumulating nice kitchen knives, I gravitated pretty quickly towards the Sanjo region and style in my early pickups. I ran through the standard shortlist (Mazaki, Wakui, Yoshikane, Masashi, Toyama, Watanabe) and then detoured towards Western makers for a while without really trying out gyutos from Sakai. The one exception was a Konosuke GS+ that didn’t do much for me apparently isn't actually a Sakai knife, even.
However, the hype around Sakai craftsmen including Yoshikazu Tanaka and Naohito Myojin was impossible to miss. All the alter egos and secrecy around who’s who among different sharpeners didn’t help with determining what I wanted but given the number of members who’ve named Kono FMs, MMs, Takadas, and other permutations/collabs as favorites, I knew I needed to try one eventually. I finally bit on a trade offer for a Takada no Hamono in blue #1… which I immediately followed up by snagging a Konosuke MM in blue #2 from BST. Sounds like a recipe for a side-by-side review…
First impressions: Takada no Hamono Suiboku
In hand, it’s a bit of an unassuming blade. It’s quite light at 148 grams and a spine thickness a little over 2.5mm at the heel, but it has just enough weight to feel nimble rather than wispy. At 225mm length, just a hair shy of 50mm at the heel and balancing almost exactly at a pinch grip, it feels extremely neutral–not big, not small, not forward or backwards balanced, just… right in the middle. For the right user, it’s very much a size that can disappear and become an effortless extension of your hand. The tradeoff is that if you want some heft and authority, look elsewhere. The profile has a smaller flat spot near but not all the way to the heel, and then a longer-than-average continuous curve to a slightly high tip. Grind looks very thin with no perceptible shoulder and quite a bit of convexity for a thin blade.
One novel feature is that the choil is rounded very asymmetrically, with the eased radius going all the way through the width of the blade–it’s perfect for a right-handed user and would be really annoying for a lefty. Great spine rounding along most of the length of the blade. As I bought this secondhand I can't comment on out of the box finish, but the lovely contrast between the core and cladding continues to come through despite plenty of patina. The cladding takes just a gorgeous patina but at this point has become very stable without any noticeable reactivity in use. Handle is really crisp and has maybe the nicest horn ferrule I’ve handled. The wood is just a little bit proud of the horn on a few facets unfortunately but it’s pretty subtle. It’s a bit narrower than typical (which I like) but, as with so many stock handles, needlessly long for anyone using a pinch grip.
First impressions: Konosuke MM
Feels quite solid in hand. Thin for sure but with a respectable amount of heft through the spine, which is further emphasized by the denser ebony handle–together, these add a full 50g compared to the Takada (198g). While the Takada’s weight is very centered around the pinch, the Kono feels like there’s a lot of mass both fore and aft, despite the balance point being only a few mm further back. In terms of dimensions, it’s almost the same at roughly 227x50.5, but side by side it appears to be a significantly bigger knife, due mostly to a flatter profile that carries more blade height forward. It has a substantially bigger feeling sweet spot and a marginally lower tip. The choil shot shows it to be wicked thin immediately behind the edge, but thickens up more quickly than the Takada.
The spine is a little over 3mm at the heel and nicely rounded (not quite as polished as the Takada, but perfectly fine) and the choil has the Konosuke signature chamfered easing. Finish is an elegant but simple horizontal hairline. It patinas more like typical iron cladding and has rather muted contrast between cladding and core. The Khii handle is really nicely executed with crisp edges, a taller/narrower shape than average, and a rounded butt end. I’m not a big fan of the machi gap generally but no complaints in how this one is installed.
Side-by-side testing:
My first impression when I put both knives on the board was sadly anticlimatic: the MM pretty much ran away with the contest. Not that the Takada is a poor cutter–it’s just that the MM is a really, really good cutter, I would say better all-around than my benchmarks for Japanese blades (Toyama and Yoshikane) and approaching my favorite westerns. If the Takada is very much in the typical Sakai lightweight category, the MM feels like that knife put on some serious muscle. With the added weight in play as well as a very thin grind towards the tip, it cuts a lot more aggressively and does it without feeling overly fragile. It outcut the Takada through a couple batches of mirepoix and some apples pretty handily, and I was ready to call it a hands-down winner between the two.
But then… after some more use and testing, especially on tasks like thin carrot and cucumber slices, the key compromise of the MM’s design started to become apparent while the Takada began to shine a bit more. Both knives are quite convex at the heel end, but the MM transitions around halfway out to a much flatter grind. This makes for a pretty effortless push cut, especially through denser product, but the tradeoff is that any food that ends up on the front half of the blade sticks on and doesn’t let go. This is especially apparent with thinly sliced wet product--if you initiate a cut from the tip rather than the mid-blade, release becomes remarkably poor. By contrast, the Takada continues its convex grind along the full length of the blade, allowing it to shed food quite a bit better–probably pretty close to the limit of what’s possible for a near-laser.
The other element that became more apparent--all performance considerations aside--is how Takada's suiboko finish really elevates the character the knife takes on with use. In addition to the darkened core steel, the patina the cladding takes is much more colorful and has more character than the muted, grey/brown patina that shows up on the MM. The photos below may exaggerate the difference a bit but it's very noticeable.
I did touch up both knives briefly on a 6000 grit stone and was equally happy with the results on both. I am not an experienced enough sharpener to make a useful comparison between these two aogami variations and heat treats, other than to say I'd happily take either steel any day.
Wrapup:
Between these two knives, the Konosuke is the one that will stick with me going forward, but with use I developed more appreciation than I expected off the bat for the Takada. The craftsmanship of the blade is stellar and I can understand why it's a favorite for those who like a lighter gyuto. Alas, right now it’s serving as more of a pleasant alternative to my daily drivers than a go-to.
If you’ve gotten on the MM hype train after reading this, the bad news is that they haven’t been available in years and likely won’t be made again due to the smith Mori reportedly retiring. But Myojin is just getting started! My understanding from searching around here, without having handled one, is that the Tetsujin blue #2 line is quite similar in terms of grind and weight class to the MM... and as a bonus the banding and core steel finish is another step up from the comparatively understated MM. I hope to get my hands on one myself and do a side-by-side round two in the future. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy putting this thing to work.
Postscript: I initially thought of this review as a comparison of two Sakai knives, but after doing some research (as is often the case) I ended up more confused than I started. Is the MM really a Sakai knife? Well... Myojin is based in Kochi prefecture, not Sakai, and I couldn't find any information on where Mori was based. Given that it's measured in the Sakai style and distributed by Konosuke Sakai (not under their Konosuke Sanjo line), I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt, but no doubt someone will correct me if I'm way off here.
However, the hype around Sakai craftsmen including Yoshikazu Tanaka and Naohito Myojin was impossible to miss. All the alter egos and secrecy around who’s who among different sharpeners didn’t help with determining what I wanted but given the number of members who’ve named Kono FMs, MMs, Takadas, and other permutations/collabs as favorites, I knew I needed to try one eventually. I finally bit on a trade offer for a Takada no Hamono in blue #1… which I immediately followed up by snagging a Konosuke MM in blue #2 from BST. Sounds like a recipe for a side-by-side review…
First impressions: Takada no Hamono Suiboku
In hand, it’s a bit of an unassuming blade. It’s quite light at 148 grams and a spine thickness a little over 2.5mm at the heel, but it has just enough weight to feel nimble rather than wispy. At 225mm length, just a hair shy of 50mm at the heel and balancing almost exactly at a pinch grip, it feels extremely neutral–not big, not small, not forward or backwards balanced, just… right in the middle. For the right user, it’s very much a size that can disappear and become an effortless extension of your hand. The tradeoff is that if you want some heft and authority, look elsewhere. The profile has a smaller flat spot near but not all the way to the heel, and then a longer-than-average continuous curve to a slightly high tip. Grind looks very thin with no perceptible shoulder and quite a bit of convexity for a thin blade.
One novel feature is that the choil is rounded very asymmetrically, with the eased radius going all the way through the width of the blade–it’s perfect for a right-handed user and would be really annoying for a lefty. Great spine rounding along most of the length of the blade. As I bought this secondhand I can't comment on out of the box finish, but the lovely contrast between the core and cladding continues to come through despite plenty of patina. The cladding takes just a gorgeous patina but at this point has become very stable without any noticeable reactivity in use. Handle is really crisp and has maybe the nicest horn ferrule I’ve handled. The wood is just a little bit proud of the horn on a few facets unfortunately but it’s pretty subtle. It’s a bit narrower than typical (which I like) but, as with so many stock handles, needlessly long for anyone using a pinch grip.
First impressions: Konosuke MM
Feels quite solid in hand. Thin for sure but with a respectable amount of heft through the spine, which is further emphasized by the denser ebony handle–together, these add a full 50g compared to the Takada (198g). While the Takada’s weight is very centered around the pinch, the Kono feels like there’s a lot of mass both fore and aft, despite the balance point being only a few mm further back. In terms of dimensions, it’s almost the same at roughly 227x50.5, but side by side it appears to be a significantly bigger knife, due mostly to a flatter profile that carries more blade height forward. It has a substantially bigger feeling sweet spot and a marginally lower tip. The choil shot shows it to be wicked thin immediately behind the edge, but thickens up more quickly than the Takada.
The spine is a little over 3mm at the heel and nicely rounded (not quite as polished as the Takada, but perfectly fine) and the choil has the Konosuke signature chamfered easing. Finish is an elegant but simple horizontal hairline. It patinas more like typical iron cladding and has rather muted contrast between cladding and core. The Khii handle is really nicely executed with crisp edges, a taller/narrower shape than average, and a rounded butt end. I’m not a big fan of the machi gap generally but no complaints in how this one is installed.
Side-by-side testing:
My first impression when I put both knives on the board was sadly anticlimatic: the MM pretty much ran away with the contest. Not that the Takada is a poor cutter–it’s just that the MM is a really, really good cutter, I would say better all-around than my benchmarks for Japanese blades (Toyama and Yoshikane) and approaching my favorite westerns. If the Takada is very much in the typical Sakai lightweight category, the MM feels like that knife put on some serious muscle. With the added weight in play as well as a very thin grind towards the tip, it cuts a lot more aggressively and does it without feeling overly fragile. It outcut the Takada through a couple batches of mirepoix and some apples pretty handily, and I was ready to call it a hands-down winner between the two.
But then… after some more use and testing, especially on tasks like thin carrot and cucumber slices, the key compromise of the MM’s design started to become apparent while the Takada began to shine a bit more. Both knives are quite convex at the heel end, but the MM transitions around halfway out to a much flatter grind. This makes for a pretty effortless push cut, especially through denser product, but the tradeoff is that any food that ends up on the front half of the blade sticks on and doesn’t let go. This is especially apparent with thinly sliced wet product--if you initiate a cut from the tip rather than the mid-blade, release becomes remarkably poor. By contrast, the Takada continues its convex grind along the full length of the blade, allowing it to shed food quite a bit better–probably pretty close to the limit of what’s possible for a near-laser.
The other element that became more apparent--all performance considerations aside--is how Takada's suiboko finish really elevates the character the knife takes on with use. In addition to the darkened core steel, the patina the cladding takes is much more colorful and has more character than the muted, grey/brown patina that shows up on the MM. The photos below may exaggerate the difference a bit but it's very noticeable.
I did touch up both knives briefly on a 6000 grit stone and was equally happy with the results on both. I am not an experienced enough sharpener to make a useful comparison between these two aogami variations and heat treats, other than to say I'd happily take either steel any day.
Wrapup:
Between these two knives, the Konosuke is the one that will stick with me going forward, but with use I developed more appreciation than I expected off the bat for the Takada. The craftsmanship of the blade is stellar and I can understand why it's a favorite for those who like a lighter gyuto. Alas, right now it’s serving as more of a pleasant alternative to my daily drivers than a go-to.
If you’ve gotten on the MM hype train after reading this, the bad news is that they haven’t been available in years and likely won’t be made again due to the smith Mori reportedly retiring. But Myojin is just getting started! My understanding from searching around here, without having handled one, is that the Tetsujin blue #2 line is quite similar in terms of grind and weight class to the MM... and as a bonus the banding and core steel finish is another step up from the comparatively understated MM. I hope to get my hands on one myself and do a side-by-side round two in the future. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy putting this thing to work.
Postscript: I initially thought of this review as a comparison of two Sakai knives, but after doing some research (as is often the case) I ended up more confused than I started. Is the MM really a Sakai knife? Well... Myojin is based in Kochi prefecture, not Sakai, and I couldn't find any information on where Mori was based. Given that it's measured in the Sakai style and distributed by Konosuke Sakai (not under their Konosuke Sanjo line), I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt, but no doubt someone will correct me if I'm way off here.
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