Types of Japanese Knives: Deba, Yanagiba, Usuba, Santoku & More

Walk into a knife shop in Sakai or Tokyo’s Kappabashi and the wall of blades can look endless. Most of them, though, belong to a handful of types, each shaped for a particular job. This guide sorts them out using what Japanese makers, producers’ associations and public bodies say about their own knives.

Two families: wa-bocho and yo-bocho

Japanese cooks divide kitchen knives into two broad groups.

• Wa-bocho (和包丁, “Japanese knives”) include the deba, sashimi knives and the nakiri. According to a Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education resource on traditional culture, they take the Japanese sword as their prototype. When demand for swords fell during the Edo period, swordsmithing techniques were put to work on kitchen knives.
• Yo-bocho (洋包丁, “Western knives”) include the petty knife, bread knife and gyuto. They arrived from the West in the Meiji era (from 1868) along with Western cooking. Knife maker Kai describes them as double-edged.

“Western-style” does not mean foreign-made. Japanese smiths and manufacturers produce both families.

Single bevel and double bevel

The more useful distinction is often the edge itself.

• A single-edged (kataba, 片刃) blade is flat on one face and gently convex on the other. Kyoto maker Aritsugu notes that, because of this, the edge drifts slightly to the left as it cuts into food.
• A double-edged (ryoba, 両刃) blade is ground at roughly the same angle on both faces.

Traditional Japanese knives are single-edged as a rule. Kai explains that this lets them cut without crushing the food’s structure, which leaves a clean, attractive cut surface. The Tokyo education resource adds that the single edge lets the cook enter the food at a sharp angle, and that Japanese knives cut by pulling, while Western knives cut by pushing.

Japanese knife types at a glance

Knife	Family	Edge	Main use	Notes from Japanese makers
Deba (出刃)	Wa	Single	Breaking down fish, cutting through fish bones	Thick at the heel, thin and pointed at the tip
Mioroshi (身卸)	Wa	—	Fish	Thinner and narrower than a deba
Funayuki (船行)	Wa	—	Filleting fish into three pieces	Once carried by fishermen for simple cooking and cutting bait
Yanagiba (柳刃)	Wa	Single	Slicing sashimi	180 mm or longer; mainly used in Kansai
Takohiki (蛸引)	Wa	Single	Slicing sashimi	The Kanto-style sashimi knife
Usuba (薄刃)	Wa	Single	Vegetables, decorative cutting	Kansai kamagata (pointed) vs Kanto kakugata (rectangular)
Nakiri (菜切)	Wa	Double	Chopping and peeling vegetables	The double-edged exception among wa-bocho
Kiritsuke (切付)	Wa	Single (Aritsugu’s model)	General purpose	Once a “Japanese-style gyuto”
Santoku (三徳)	Yo	Double	Meat, fish and vegetables	Roughly 165 mm to under 180 mm
Gyuto (牛刀)	Yo	Double	All-purpose, especially meat	180 mm or longer
Petty (ペティ)	Yo	Double	Small, in-hand and detailed work	120–150 mm

Blade lengths are Kai’s guide figures; individual products vary. Kai classes the santoku with Western-style knives, though it is a Japanese design.

Traditional Japanese knives (wa-bocho)

Deba, mioroshi and funayuki: knives for fish

The deba is the workhorse of Japanese fish preparation. Kai describes it as thick at the heel with a sharp, thin tip, and uses it for filleting fish and chopping them into pieces; its thickness and weight do the work of cutting through fish bones. The Sakai Cutlery Association lists the mioroshi as a thinner, narrower fish knife than the deba. Kai describes the funayuki as well suited to sanmai oroshi, cutting a fish into two fillets and a backbone, and notes that fishermen once took it to sea for simple cooking and chopping bait.

Yanagiba and takohiki: sashimi knives

Japan’s sashimi knives are long and single-edged. Kai gives the yanagiba a blade length of 180 mm or more and credits the single edge with the clean cut surface prized in sashimi. Its name comes from its long, slender shape, likened to a willow (yanagi) or iris leaf. It is mainly a Kansai knife. In the Kanto region, around Tokyo, the equivalent is the takohiki, which appears in the catalogue of Kiya, a Tokyo knife shop.

Usuba and nakiri: vegetable knives

The usuba is a vegetable knife; Kiya describes it as a knife for decorative vegetable work. It is single-edged and comes in two regional shapes (see the Kanto vs Kansai section below).

The nakiri is the other vegetable knife: Kai lists chamfering, chopping, peeling and hollowing among its uses. It is the notable exception among traditional knives because it is double-edged. Kiya sells it in three shapes, azuma-gata (eastern), nishi-gata (western) and kama-gata (sickle-shaped).

Kiritsuke

Aritsugu, the Kyoto maker, writes that until fairly recently the kiritsuke was “something like a Japanese-style gyuto”, a knife used for almost anything, but that it has since been overshadowed by the gyuto itself. Aritsugu’s own kiritsuke is single-edged.

Specialist knives

The Sakai Cutlery Association also lists knives made for a single task: hamo honekiri for scoring the fine bones of pike conger, unagi-saki for splitting eels (in Osaka, Kyoto, Edo and Nagoya/Ise patterns), sushi-kiri for cutting sushi rolls, menkiri for cutting noodles, and kashi-bocho for Japanese confectionery.

Western-style knives made in Japan

Santoku

Kai describes the santoku as an all-purpose knife combining elements of the nakiri, the sashimi knife and the gyuto, with a blade of roughly 165 mm to under 180 mm, for meat, fish and vegetables. It is double-edged. For a cook who is unsure, Kai’s own advice is simple: choose a santoku. Browse santoku knives at Chubo

Gyuto

The gyuto (literally “beef knife”) does the same range of jobs as the santoku but, at 180 mm or longer, its longer blade suits meat. Browse gyuto knives at Chubo

Petty and others

The petty knife runs 120–150 mm and suits in-hand work and fine cutting. Kai’s range of Western knives also includes a boning knife (honesuki) and a slicer (sujihiki).

Kanto vs Kansai: same job, different shape

In Japan, the eastern Kanto region (Tokyo) and the western Kansai region (Osaka, Kyoto) developed different shapes for the same task.

Task	Kansai (Osaka, Kyoto)	Kanto (Tokyo)
Slicing sashimi	Yanagiba	Takohiki
Vegetables (usuba)	Kamagata usuba (pointed tip)	Kakugata usuba (rectangular)

Steel and construction in brief

A knife’s type tells you what it is for; its steel and construction tell you how it will behave.

Laminated vs honyaki

• Awase (合わせ, laminated): Aritsugu describes a body of soft iron with steel forged onto the cutting edge, giving an edge that resists chipping and has some flexibility. The official Traditional Craft listing for Sakai knives (kougeihin.jp) notes that forge-welding soft iron (jigane) to edge steel (hagane) is characteristic of Sakai. The Sakai association lists this hagane-tsuke step as the first stage of forging, joining the two metals with a flux of boric acid, borax and iron oxide.
• Honyaki (本焼, “true-fired”): made entirely from one piece of steel. Kiya describes it as hardened with a layer of clay, which produces a distinctive hamon (temper line), and calls it a knife for cooks with plenty of experience and skill.
• Three-layer clad steel (sanmai): Takefu Special Steel, a steelmaker in Echizen, says this is the most widely used knife material, pairing a high-grade steel core with less expensive outer layers.

The Sakai association adds that kasumi (“mist”) also names a finish: honyaki edges are usually given a kido finish, laminated knives a kasumi finish.

Carbon steel: shirogami and aogami

Shirogami and aogami are carbon steels made by Proterial (formerly Hitachi Metals) in Yasugi, Shimane.

• Shirogami (White Paper steel): Niigata’s industrial research institute calls it a premium knife steel with few harmful impurities, but notes that the same purity makes it difficult to harden. In practice, the result depends heavily on the smith’s heat treatment.
• Aogami (Blue Paper steel): shirogami with chromium and tungsten added to improve heat treatment and wear resistance. The Sakai association gives the additions as 0.3–0.5% chromium and 1.5–2% tungsten, and notes that aogami knives cost more because the alloying elements are expensive. More generally, Kai says a knife’s price is set mainly by its blade material and the precision of the work.

In December 2025 Proterial also launched aigami, which it presents as a new category that is neither carbon nor stainless steel, combining hardness with corrosion resistance and ease of sharpening.

Stainless and powder steels

Takefu Special Steel developed VG10 (V-gold No. 10): 1.00% carbon, 15.00% chromium, 1.00% molybdenum, 0.25% vanadium and 1.55% cobalt, hardened to HRC 60 or above. Its powder-metallurgy SG2 (Super Gold 2) reaches HRC 62 or above; the company does not publish its composition.

Damascus

Kai explains that Damascus-pattern knives have many layers of different metals bonded to the sides, which reveal a pattern resembling a sword’s temper line when ground. Most Damascus knives have a separate core steel, and the Japanese arm of Zwilling notes that sharpness comes from that core, not the pattern. Kai also warns that once a whetstone scratches the pattern, it cannot be restored.

Who makes them: Japan’s knife-producing regions

Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) designates seven forged-blade crafts as Traditional Crafts. The table shows four whose products include kitchen knives, plus Seki, the largest producer, which is not among the seven:

Area	Designation	Kitchen knife notes
Sakai (Osaka)	Sakai Uchihamono, 1982	Forge-welded jigane and hagane; clay-coated hardening; hand sharpening
Echizen (Fukui)	Echizen Uchihamono, 1979 (Japan’s first designated blade area)	Sickles, hedge shears and kitchen knives
Tosa (Kochi)	Tosa Uchihamono, 1998	“Free forging” to order from dimensions alone
Sanjo (Niigata)	Echigo Sanjo Uchihamono, 2009	Kitchen knives, kiridashi knives, planes, chisels
Seki (Gifu)	Not designated; “Seki no Hamono” regional collective trademark, registered 2008	Japan’s largest knife-producing area

Seki’s knife history is rooted in swordmaking that began in the late Kamakura and Nanbokucho periods; when demand for swords fell in the Edo period, many swordsmiths turned to kitchen knives and other blades, according to Seki City.

Sakai’s division of labour

According to Sakai City and the Sakai Cutlery Association, Sakai knives pass through separate specialists: a smith forges the blade, a sharpener grinds and polishes the edge, and a handle maker fits the handle. The association credits Sakai’s reputation to its forging skill and to sharpening that makes the most of it. Craftsmen are loosely grouped as deba-ya, moroha-ya (double-edged) and usuba-ya, and some make only one or two knife types. The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau notes that around 90% of knives used by professional chefs are said to come from Sakai. The Tokyo education resource offers a useful contrast: a traditional Edo-bocho (Tokyo knife) maker carries out every stage alone.

Choosing your first knife and keeping it sharp

If you are buying in or from Japan, look for both a production area and a maker or smith’s name; our guide on how to tell an authentic Japanese knife covers trademarks and labelling.

Everyday care

Kiya treats some rust on a new carbon knife as unavoidable, and suggests rubbing it off with powdered cleanser and a damp wine cork; repeated, this helps the blade stabilise. For storage, Kai recommends wrapping knives in newspaper and keeping them somewhere dry and well ventilated.

Sharpening and resharpening

Kai’s guide to whetstones: a coarse stone (#300–400) for chips and rust, a medium stone (#800–1000) for routine sharpening, and a finishing stone (#2000–3000), with sharpening once or twice a month. Kai adds that honing rods do not create an edge; they only clean the edge and restore cutting temporarily. For single-edged knives, Kiya advises laying the flat back (ura) completely flat on the stone.

In Japan, shops and production areas commonly offer resharpening. Kiya resharpens knives bought from its own shop (¥2,200–5,500 for Japanese knives, taking three weeks to two months). The Sakai Traditional Crafts Hall (Sakai Denshokan) offers resharpening from ¥1,600, with sharpening demonstrations at weekends, and craftspeople at the Gifu Seki Cutlery Hall in Seki also resharpen knives. See Japanese-made knives at Chubo

Summary

• Japanese kitchen knives are either traditional wa-bocho (deba, yanagiba, usuba, nakiri) or Western-style yo-bocho (santoku, gyuto, petty), both made in Japan.
• Most wa-bocho are single-edged and cut with a pulling stroke; the nakiri, santoku and gyuto are double-edged.
• Shapes vary by region: yanagiba and kamagata usuba in Kansai, takohiki and kakugata usuba in Kanto.
• Sakai relies on separate smiths, sharpeners and handle makers; Seki leads national shipments but is a regional trademark, not a designated Traditional Craft.
• For a first knife, Japanese makers point to the santoku, and resharpening at a shop or production area is a normal part of owning one.