The people that think that everyone is against santokus or Shun or Moritaka are mostly those who own them and are suspicious of criticism, it seems to me. If you look closely I think that you will see that that all of the criticism of one shape or brand or what ever are based in individual taste or experience. Everyone is entitled to their taste and their experience. When someone expresses an opinion about something that you have invested yourself in don't take it personally!
Of course I could be wrong and there are many out there that just hate things for the sake of hating things.
I don't know if its so much hate as it goes against the supposed common wisdom of the forum. At one time, when an inquiry was made about any knife, besides a gyuto, the standard reply was why do you want that knife? A gyuto will do everything that knife can do plus more. When asked, what more can a gyuto do? The reply usually was the gyuto has a tip. The next obvious question, why is a tip so important? The response has been, well if you have to ask, then you don't get it. My experience has been when a subject cannot be explained in plain English, then there is a lack of understanding. To be fair, the forum hasn't done this type of response in a while now.
At times there seems to be a lack of imagination by gyuto users that there might be better knives, for different jobs or situations.
Shun/Global are entry level knives, to fans of Japanese cutlery. They are not what many of us who would consider them as a second or third knife. Newbies must be struck, by the number of negative responses, when inquiring about these brands. It's also trendy to talk down about Shun.
Moritaka has a known problem. For lack of a better term it has been called a hole, which is a confusing term, when it comes to knives. It's disconcerting to an owner to find that their knife has a problem, and what happens to the knife, if it develops a hole? Does the whole knife become useless?
Most of us, are understanding when a person tries a knife, and finds out that they don't care for it. The issue I have is when a person starts talking down about a knife. If I've got the same knife and know from experience contradicts what is being said about the knife, then I'll question it. Sometimes the person has received a poorly made knife, which would piss me off. But if enough people are positive about the knife, then it might be worth it to give it another try.
The argument that is annoying, is when a person says a particular knife is over priced. That gets the attention of everybody. Who wants to get ripped off? The problem with the argument is that its almost impossible to prove the value of a knife. So its purely subjective to say a knife is over valued.
Jay
lus1: on the Carter Wa-Bocho
