Byakko - 270mm Sakimaru Takobiki by Kenji Togashi

Sakai Takayuki is the knife brand of Aoki Hamono Seisakusho (青木刃物製作所), a family company in Sakai, Osaka, now in its third generation. Ichiro Aoki founded the business in 1947; the second generation, Takayuki Aoki, gave the brand 堺孝行 its given name; and the third, Takahiro Aoki, is president. Sakai's knife tradition goes back over 600 years, which is the region's history, not the company's age. Aoki Hamono sells to customers in more than 20 countries.

The business began in Tondabayashi, Osaka, as a wholesaler of Sakai forged knives. It opened an office in Sakai and took the name Aoki Hamono Seisakusho in 1963, and registered the Sakai Takayuki trademark in 1964. The Sanpo factory in Sakai followed in 1977, and blacksmiths and sharpeners joined it in 1978. In 2015 Sanpo was renovated with an automatic grinding machine for Japanese knives.

Sakai splits the work of knifemaking: forging, grinding and sharpening are done by different specialists. Aoki's craftsman page lists eight blacksmiths and seven sharpeners, six of them certified traditional craftsmen. Kenji Togashi is a certified blacksmith whose specialty is honyaki and forged knives. Itsuo Doi forges for Sakai Takayuki; he trained under his father, Keijiro Doi, whom Aoki calls a master smith. A smith of the Yamatsuka family works Ginsan, a stainless steel Aoki says is rare in Sakai, and learned to forge it from his father. Among the sharpeners, Mitsuo Yamatsuka is a certified traditional craftsman whose specialties are single-bevel, mirror and double-bevel sharpening, and Hirotsugu Tosa, who died in 2025, did honyaki and mirror-finish sharpening.

The company's range runs from Japanese and Western knives to pastry, Chinese and soba knives, and what we list is a slice of it. The single-bevel knives are the Tokujou line in White 2 carbon, Ginsan deba and yanagiba under Ginsanko and Gintan, and the stainless single-bevel INOX line. The double-bevel lines are Kurokage in VG10, the SPG2 line, Ginga in ZA-18 Damascus, and the Blue 2 knives Homura Guren and Aoniko. The honyaki we list are a Kenji Togashi honyaki gyuto and the GinRyu Swedish steel honyaki yanagiba, and the two craftsman lines are Byakko by Kenji Togashi and Hienn by Itsuo Doi. We also list a bread knife and pastry spatulas.