These HAP40 Yanagiba belong to a group of specialized knives that takes the innovative metallurgy technology, and mixing it with some Japanese traditional flavour. However, this line still employs a Nimai construction instead of a Honyaki, which makes them more afforodable and easier to sharpen.
To elaborate on the aforementioned "specialized knives", they are blades that are made in the traditional for using traditional techniques, like a Honyaki Yanagiba, but uses newer stainless or even powder steels instead of Hitachi carbon steels. Pairing these high performance steels with a top notch finishing, these are the knives that pushi the boundary of Japanese knifemaking as "Practical Arts“. One famouse example is Sakai Akazawa, which has multiple products including Honyaki VG-10 or ZDP-189 forged by the legendary bladesmith Yoshikazu Ikeda. We too keep some SG2 Honyaki Yanagiba from Sukenari in store.
As great and beautiful these knives are, the price and scarcity of them have made them nearly inaccessible to most of us, this is where I think this Hatsukokoro HAP40 line comes in place. As it is still uses the powder tool steel which got that very good edge retention, your are not gonna miss any performance compair with those Honyaki knives, but the Nimai structure have made this line much easier to produce and sharpen, thus the price of this line have come to a much affordable range for what it is.
The finish of this line is done very well, although it is not a high mirror polish, the uniformity of the finish across this blade is very good, with hardly any inconsistency that I can spot. If you are planning to venture into the world of these high end Yanagiba, this line can be something to consider about as it fit in the spot between a high-end Honyaki and a carbon steel Kasumi Nimai.
