Shibamasa VG5 Santoku 170mm

Both are all-purpose Japanese knives, and for most home cooks either will handle the bulk of daily prep. The choice comes down to length, blade shape, and how you like to cut.

A gyuto is the Japanese chef's knife, with a gently curved edge that lets you rock and slide through cuts as well as chop. Tojiro's guide to Western knife shapes gives 150 to 210mm as the household size for a gyuto and up to 360mm for professional use. The extra length and pointed tip give you reach and versatility, from proteins to large produce.

Tojiro's guide to Japanese knife shapes gives 165 to 170mm as the household size for a santoku, which has a flatter profile and a rounded sheep's-foot tip. It rewards a straight up-and-down push cut, feels nimble in smaller hands or tight kitchens, and is the classic Japanese household knife.

Rule of thumb: choose a gyuto if you want one do-everything knife with more reach, or a santoku if you prefer a compact, easy-to-control blade. Plenty of our customers end up owning both.

Match the shape to your stroke. Rock chopping keeps the tip on the board and rolls the curved belly through the food, so a gyuto or a Western chef's knife suits it, and Japanese knives rock fine as long as you rock gently.

Up-and-down chopping, the Chinese style, wants a straight run of edge, so a nakiri, usuba, santoku or bunka suits it better; a curved edge chopped straight down easily leaves pieces joined. Neither shape is better; it depends on how you cut.

A Japanese dictionary explains the name of the santoku (三徳包丁) as coming from the three things it handles: meat, fish and vegetables. The same dictionary entry points from the santoku to the bunka (文化包丁), treating the two as one knife.

One Japanese knife maker guide distinguishes the two by the tip. It says that in the Showa era the bunka was made with its tip cut at an angle, and the santoku came after it by rounding that tip.

Both are Takefu stainless steels, and VG10 comes out higher in Takefu's own figures. Its table gives VG10 1.00% carbon, 15.00% chromium, 1.00% molybdenum, 0.25% vanadium and 1.55% cobalt at HRC 60 or more, against VG5's 0.75% carbon, 14.00% chromium, 0.30% molybdenum and 0.15% vanadium, with no cobalt listed, at HRC 59 or more.

VG5 (V金5号) has its own role: Takefu lists it and VG2 as favoured stainless steels for thin blades, refined from low-impurity raw material so that they grind and forge well, with a chromium to carbon balance tuned to keep hardness high while resisting corrosion.

VG5 is a stainless blade steel from Takefu Special Steel, which lists 14% chromium and a quench hardness of 59 HRC or more. Takefu says VG2 and VG5 are favoured as stainless steels for thin blades: made from low-impurity material and refined, they grind and forge well, and their chromium to carbon balance keeps hardness high while holding corrosion resistance.

Stainless means the steel rusts less, the Japan Stainless Steel Association says, so the knives we list as Shibamasa VG5 still want washing and drying.