In the months leading up to my first trip to Japan in 2024, I was in contact with Natsuko-san from Konosuke. I reached out to maybe 10 different knife craftsmen and knife companies in Japan and Konosuke was one of the few that replied to me. So, after confirming that a visit to their workshop was okay, I added it to my already packed itinerary hoping my wife wouldn’t mind the detour. Konosuke was a company I was really looking forward to meeting. Their website was easy to navigate (which was rare at the time), and their stories of how the company was formed and how each of their knife lines were created was immensely fascinating to me. There were two knives I ended up being drawn to: the FM and the YS.
The “knife day” of our trip started off quite rough. My luggage had not yet been delivered and my yen was all in there. I wanted to make sure I had enough cash in the event that the knife shops I visited didn’t accept credit cards. I had some trouble withdrawing cash from an ATM, and after some frustrating phone calls/online text chats with Chase and Amex, I finally was able to get some cash out using my Amex platinum card. Chase Sapphire was of no help.
So with the cash withdrawal fiasco behind us, we left on our knife journey a couple hours later than I had intended to. We missed the main tram and I made both my wife and myself sprint to the next closest station to get on the metro (otherwise we’d have to wait 45 minutes for the next one). We finally got on the train we needed to, but instead of feeling relief, I just felt immense guilt because the one thing my wife requested for our trip was not to have to “run” anywhere. She meant it metaphorically, but it was worse because I made her run literally. I could see how flustered she was and now both of us were sitting on a hot train panting and sweating.
Why am I boring you with all these non-knife related details? I wanted to paint a picture of how stressful and frustrated I was feeling prior to reaching the workshop. We exited the station and, after profusely apologizing to Meredith, we started the not-so-short walk to Konosuke. In retrospect, it was probably a good thing because it helped me to calm down a bit. When we finally found the shop, we were confused about the process because there are two doors: one that is the store front, and the other to their workshop. We entered the workshop side awkwardly and announced our presence. They ushered us into the store front side shortly after and apologized that Natsuko-san was not there that day.
When I finally stepped into their storefront and looked around, a wave of calm hit me and all the feelings of frustration and stress just washed away. I was mentally matching up all the knives they had on their website with the knives displayed in the cases. My eyes couldn’t find the FM, but eventually found the YS and I asked to see it.
If I am honest, I didn’t exactly know what I was looking for as I held the blade in my hand. I was still an infant in my knife journey at that point, so I went almost 100% by feel rather than anything technical. While I knew terms like “distal taper” and “lasers” and “choil,” I didn’t quite understand how they applied to my knife preferences yet. The knife just felt so right in my hand and I told the two ladies helping me that I would take the knife very shortly after they took it out. The whole process was quite smooth and we used google translate to get past any communication hurdles we had. I asked about the care and maintenance and confirmed the type of steel.
A part of me wanted to stay for a bit longer to peruse the other knives on display, but we had a packed schedule so we said our thank yous and good byes and continued on our way. I was so giddy about the knife I felt so lucky to buy. It’s been about two years since I bought the knife and I am reminded of the wild ride of emotions I felt every time I pick up my YS. While I have picked up some knives since then that perform better, this knife holds a special place in my heart.
In my last post, I talked about microscopes. The one I bought is no longer available, but the one I will link below looks exactly the same and is priced about the same as well. Having an adjustable light is really helpful, and having the ability to connect directly to your phone is nice for if you want to take videos/pictures. I question whether it really does go up to 1000x magnification because I feel like I only get a really clear image at around 50x-100x, but maybe that’s a skill issue.