The wooden case the knife comes in is absolutely a great touch! The knife is wicked sharp and feels wonderful in hand. It IS heavier than it appears but this simply gives it heft. One of the nicest blades I own! Quite pleased with this purchase.

There's a lot like about Katashi knives balance, heft, edge retention, and shape I like. Their distinctive wavy-patterned multi-layer blade looks amazing in person.

This knife is very nice to look at and is clearly well made. I can find no defect in its construction. It's wickedly sharp and pointed. I found it to be somewhat back heavy, compared to European chef's knives. I think this is due to the blade's thickness combined with the steel butt plate. The blade is thinner that European chef knives, which makes slicing easy as can be. For me it has too much "belly", it's more curved than I prefer. The blade's curvature is much more than any other knife I've worked with. While this makes a rocking chop technique easier, I find it too curved to do the push chopping that's my style. YMMV. I wouldn't recommend it for new chefs, though, as the blade is so hard it's likely to chip if mistreated or use on bones or other hard surfaces.

I had been using a Cutco knife which had grown dull. The turning point was when i made shrimp n grits and had to dice bacon and the Cutco begrudgingly diced the bacon but I earned a nasty blister from gripping the knife so hard trying to cut through all the fat. I had to get a new Knife. So I found this knife and it had decent reviews.

The true test for me involved slicing/dicing things i do on a regular basis:
1) raw chicken
2) veggies
3) bacon

1) The raw chicken used to take me quite a while to dice up. Now, I can take a raw chicken breast and gently slice it 3 times then hold the 3 pieces together and slice perpendicular for an easy dice. I'm amazed at what I've been missing out on. This knife is amazingly sharp and the effort to slice 'n dice now is minimal. I really do apply very little pressure and there is no "sawing" involved. I simply apply gentle pressure and slice.

2) If it can slice raw chicken it can definitely slice veggies. So far I've only had the chance to dice bell pepper. Again, all I do is apply gentle pressure and slice

3) now for the final test. when I make shrimp n grits I take bacon and dice it up. The Yo-Deba allows me to layer 3 slices of bacon on top of each other and simply slice down the middle. Then I hold them together and do a perpendicular cut to dice. No Blisters this time!!! It sliced right through all the fat perfectly.

Great knife and prepping food for cooking is no longer a chore!!