Kisuke Manaka

The story

The business dates to 1872, and its craft has passed through five generations. Up to the fourth generation it worked under the house mark 『マ』, known as kane-Ma: black-finished forged kitchen knives, shears and farm tools, sold from a shop called 間中刃物店. A knife store, in plain words. The fifth generation is the reason it is now called something else.

He entered the workshop in 2005 as apprentice to the fourth-generation smith, 間中保夫. In 2014 he succeeded as fifth generation, renamed the shop Manaka Hamono Tanrenjo (間中刃物鍛錬所), a forge rather than a store, and took the smith-name Kisuke, 貴輔. That is the name on his work. In 2025 he moved the workshop from Saitama to Sanjo, Niigata. The workshop's own words for why: in pursuit of a higher level. When James asked him, he said he simply wanted to move, and friends in Sanjo offered help.

His own pages document how he works. He taught himself stainless forge-welding, studying the behaviour and particles of iron through the internet and the library, and worked out heat treatment for stainless and powder high-speed steel on his own. The workshop does not use clad stock pre-bonded from stainless, iron and steel. He attaches the steel, forge-welds, anneals, quenches, tempers, runs the sub-zero treatment, sharpens and fits the handle. One person, the whole way through. James visited the new workshop in Sanjo on 4 February 2026 and found him still working everything by himself.

His steels follow the same idea. He welds White #2 or Blue #2 under stainless himself. For hon-warikomi he splits soft iron with a chisel, sets Blue #1 inside, forge-welds the blade and water-quenches it. His ATS-34 knives carry an 18Cr stainless jigane in warikomi construction with sub-zero treatment, and his site lists approximately HRC 64 for both the Blue #1 and the ATS-34 knives.

We list the Kisuke x Xinguo line in ATS-34, as gyuto, K-tip gyuto, bunka, sujihiki, petty, honesuki and chuka, and a Blue #1 Byakku Enn Damascus gyuto.

The workshop once gave a wait of a year to a year and a half for custom orders. It deliberately publishes no phone number, and its homepage asks customers not to confuse it with a similarly named shop nearby.