WiriWiri
Senior Member
I’ve owned a Takeda AS Gyuto since 2011, when the tsunami of bullhype around these blades blew so hard that a few even belatedly reached one of the two retailers on this backward isle. As someone suggested earlier, these were quieter times in the J Knife world— hell even Glestains seemed vaguely still interesting back then- and the chance to pick up a named smith’s work in a larger size seemed far too good to pass up
I’ll admit to being a little discomforted when my Takeda arrived. It was a whopping outsized 240 (250+), with a heel taller than my nakiri at 65+. And whilst it looked appropriately mean and rustic, if felt strangely 2D and light when i pulled it out of its packaging, as if a passing steam roller had just flattened a smaller and more purposeful knife. I expected a butch, rustic blade that would plough though produce, but this thing felt together altogether much more frail, lacking the heft to do the work expected.
I thought the profile sucked on first use, and I’m still much of the same opinion. The weird surface area/low weight ratio and thinness of the blade implies laser, but this big flat ugly porpoise of a blade felt nothing like as nimble as that. You’ve basically got the big flat spot at the heel, which only gently curves until it reaches a bulbous snout - even a few cm away from the tip this thing was still higher than many of the tallest point of many of the Sakai knives I was accustomed to. All that metal just felt unbalanced and awkward in my hands - using it on my undersized, overcrowded kitchen counters seemed unnecessarily challenging, like an anorexic ballerina choosing to flap around Oxford St whilst wearing a sandwich board in a mild gale. 10 years later and it probably remains my least used gyuto as a result.
Yet despite all that I don’t dislike the Takeda, and I can totally understand why good people rave about its cutting qualities. It does sharpen easily to a ridiculously keen edge, perennially achieving that pointlessly satisfying stick in board thinness. And given the right produce and mission it provides an unparalleled experience - aim it as some greens and some field mushrooms (for example) and there’s a weird, detached weightlessness to the way that giant flat heel silently scalpels down on produce. Get it right and a pile of perfectly sliced veg silently and magically seems to appear in front of you, with none of that sticking and rolling around the board nonsense.
I‘m happy enough for it to keep a place in my collection for that feeling alone
I’ll admit to being a little discomforted when my Takeda arrived. It was a whopping outsized 240 (250+), with a heel taller than my nakiri at 65+. And whilst it looked appropriately mean and rustic, if felt strangely 2D and light when i pulled it out of its packaging, as if a passing steam roller had just flattened a smaller and more purposeful knife. I expected a butch, rustic blade that would plough though produce, but this thing felt together altogether much more frail, lacking the heft to do the work expected.
I thought the profile sucked on first use, and I’m still much of the same opinion. The weird surface area/low weight ratio and thinness of the blade implies laser, but this big flat ugly porpoise of a blade felt nothing like as nimble as that. You’ve basically got the big flat spot at the heel, which only gently curves until it reaches a bulbous snout - even a few cm away from the tip this thing was still higher than many of the tallest point of many of the Sakai knives I was accustomed to. All that metal just felt unbalanced and awkward in my hands - using it on my undersized, overcrowded kitchen counters seemed unnecessarily challenging, like an anorexic ballerina choosing to flap around Oxford St whilst wearing a sandwich board in a mild gale. 10 years later and it probably remains my least used gyuto as a result.
Yet despite all that I don’t dislike the Takeda, and I can totally understand why good people rave about its cutting qualities. It does sharpen easily to a ridiculously keen edge, perennially achieving that pointlessly satisfying stick in board thinness. And given the right produce and mission it provides an unparalleled experience - aim it as some greens and some field mushrooms (for example) and there’s a weird, detached weightlessness to the way that giant flat heel silently scalpels down on produce. Get it right and a pile of perfectly sliced veg silently and magically seems to appear in front of you, with none of that sticking and rolling around the board nonsense.
I‘m happy enough for it to keep a place in my collection for that feeling alone