josemartinlopez
我會買所有的獨角獸
Branching off from the epic Konosuke Fujiyama thread...If you want to get a Konosuke in Japan, you have to contact them directly, which is not because they wouldn't sell in Japan or because they were designed for Western customers and don't really match the people's needs here, but because their capacities are already exhausted by distributors from abroad. Even if you visit them, they probably won't have more than just a couple of knives in the small and beautiful showroom. That's also the reason why they were never established as a famous brand in Japan. At the same time, you might want to know that many brands only became famous in Japan after they were discovered abroad. It might be surprising at first, but almost all people here including chefs don't really care much about knives anyway, but just get what they were recommended by their seniors or what was advertised, without having any idea about steels etc.
I'm really intrigued by this comment. What Japanese knife brands only became famous in Japan after they became famous outside Japan?
Has the reverse happened, where there are brands with a strong following in Japan but not outside it? Is it a factor that there are traditional knives used in Japanese cuisine that would have little application outside this?