ComparisonsJapanese knife steels,
shapes and towns compared

Start here: most buying questions come down to two choices — the steel (carbon or stainless, and how hard) and the shape (an all-purpose gyuto or santoku, or a specialist single-bevel knife). Each comparison below puts the steelmakers’ published numbers or the makers’ own descriptions side by side, says where sources disagree, and ends with a short “which should you choose” table.

Steel comparisons

• Blue vs White steel — Aogami (Blue) and Shirogami (White) share the same carbon; Blue adds 1.0–2.5% tungsten and Cr for wear resistance. All 6 Proterial grades compared.
• Aogami Super vs SG2 — Aogami Super is a carbon steel; SG2 is a powder stainless. In Knife Steel Nerds’ CATRA test SG2 cut 522 mm at 61.2 HRC vs Aogami Super’s 338 mm at 65.1 HRC.
• VG-10 vs SG2 — VG-10 and SG2 are stainless steels from Takefu Special Steel. SG2 is a powder steel rated ≥62 HRC (CATRA 522 mm) vs VG-10 ≥60 HRC (CATRA 479 mm).

Want a steel that is not in a head-to-head yet? The Japanese knife steel chart lists all 15 steels in one sortable table, and every steel has its own page with composition, maker hardness and sources.

How to read a steel comparison

Three numbers do most of the work. Carbon sets how hard the steel can be hardened; chromium decides whether it is stainless (we use the usual 10.5% threshold); and the maker hardness (HRC) is the hardening hardness the steelmaker publishes — usually a minimum — not the hardness of the finished knife, which depends on the knifemaker’s heat treatment. Where a steelmaker does not publish a composition, as with SG2, we show retailer figures and mark them †.

For edge retention we use one independent source: Knife Steel Nerds’ CATRA test, which cuts silica-loaded card with a 15° per-side edge from a 400-grit CBN finish and reports the total length cut. It is a controlled lab number, so it ranks steels fairly against each other, but a thinner grind or a more acute angle can matter as much in a real kitchen.

Shape and town comparisons

• Gyuto vs santoku vs bunka — the three all-purpose shapes: length, tip and which board they suit.
• Gyuto vs nakiri — the chef’s knife against the flat-edged vegetable knife.
• Gyuto vs kiritsuke — double-bevel chef’s knife vs the angled-tip kiritsuke, and what “K-tip” means.
• Single-bevel vs double-bevel — kataba vs ryōba geometry, the hollow back and left-handed knives.
• Japanese knife towns compared — Sakai, Seki, Echizen, Tsubame-Sanjo, Miki and Tosa side by side.

All nine classic shapes are in the Japanese knife types hub with lengths and bevels. If you are torn between two shapes, choose by the cutting you do most: a 210 mm gyuto for mixed cooking on a large board, a santoku or nakiri for a small board and mostly vegetables, and a single-bevel knife only if you want to learn Japanese fish and vegetable techniques.

After you choose

Carbon steels such as Aogami and Shirogami need drying during prep and a little oil before storage, so read how to care for a Japanese knife before you buy one. If you plan to order from a shop in Japan, the US import duty calculator and the buying guides show what the knife costs once duty and carrier fees are added.