Shibamasa VG5 Santoku 170mm

The gyuto came to Japan with the beef-eating culture of the Meiji era, and that is where its name comes from. Tojiro says it is used for all kinds of cooking, which is why it is also called the chef's knife.

The santoku is a household knife that combines the good points of the nakiri and the gyuto. Tojiro describes it as all-purpose, from vegetables to meat and fish, double-bevel and built on the same construction as a Western knife.

Choose a gyuto if you want more length and reach. Choose a santoku if you want a shorter all-purpose knife. Tojiro's own size figures: gyuto 150 to 210mm for household use and up to 360mm for professional use, santoku 165 to 170mm for household use.

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. Takefu's own figures give VG10 1.00% carbon, 15.00% chromium, 1.00% molybdenum, 0.25% vanadium and 1.55% cobalt at a hardening hardness of 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) 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.