01
Free 16-page PDF
A printable field checklist for the first comparison, the shop conversation and the sources to re-check.
Send it to my inbox
BladeHunter Field Guides
Buying Your Japanese Kitchen Knife in Japan
A Practical Field Guide to Japan’s Knife Shops, Buying Regions, Prices, Care, and Bringing Your Knife Home.
Buy the knife that fits your kitchen—not just the display case.
ASIN B0HG59QZJV. Also available from Amazon in the UK, Canada, Australia and Germany. Prices and availability vary by marketplace.
What the book helps you finish
A decision method, not a list of famous knives.
Begin with your real kitchen, narrow the wall to two candidates, and pause when an important fact is still missing.
- 01
Build a short buyer brief.
Use the meals you cook, board space, storage, motion and care routine to define what is worth comparing.
- 02
Compare shapes without ranking labels.
Use santoku, gyuto and neighbouring shapes as starting points, then ask about the exact knife in front of you.
- 03
Turn steel names into useful questions.
Connect steel and construction language to care, sharpening access and the complete offer instead of treating one label as a quality score.
- 04
Plan the journey home responsibly.
Separate the seller, security authority, every operating carrier, destination customs and local rules, then re-check the current sources for your route.
Inside the illustrated edition
Twelve practical chapters from kitchen to counter to home.
- Knife shapes, steels, construction and the complete purchase offer.
- Sakai, Kappabashi, Seki and other buying-region research without shop rankings.
- Seven questions for the exact knife and shop visit in front of you.
- Price notes, care planning, decision labs and field worksheets.
- A current, route-specific method for travel and import checks.
Contributor & photography
A working-cook perspective from Alex Zhang.
Alex Zhang contributes selected photography and practical culinary perspective. His experience spans nearly thirty years of Chinese, Western and Japanese culinary training and professional kitchens; he is currently based in Ireland and operates two Japanese–Western creative restaurants.
His contribution adds a cook’s point of view to the visual field guide. It is not presented as supervision of every technical or travel statement in the book.
Choose the depth you need
One buying journey, three different jobs.
The free PDF, the paid book and the free App are designed to complement one another—not repeat the same pages.
02
English Kindle eBook
The complete illustrated method for understanding the decision, comparing two candidates and planning ownership.
Available now on Amazon Kindle · ASIN B0HG59QZJV
03
Free BladeHunter App
An on-trip companion for keeping knife research, comparisons and travel-check reminders together.
Final release verification · no App Store link claimed yet
Available now
Take the complete field guide with you.
The Kindle eBook is available now from Amazon. The website continues to answer practical buying questions, while the free field guide is sent after you enter a valid email address and give clear consent to receive it and occasional BladeHunter guide updates; every update includes an unsubscribe link.