Amazon カスタマー 3 For the money, this is a reasonably good knife, but I feel it is overpriced. It arrived and I set about using it. The most disappointing thing was it was not as sharp as I was expecting it to be. Really, it should have arrived razor sharp, but it didn't. So far, I have cut cured and other meats and vegetables. It did an OK job. I primarily got this knife to cut cured hams and other meats. It is not easy to cut the meats as thinly as I would like and it didn't work so well on that. In short it will not slice things ultra thinly. I looked at the box and all the other literature that came with it, and there is no inkling as to the country of origin. I suspect that it was made in China, which is a pity because for knife making, the Japanese are in an unassailable league of their own. I regret the purchase because I should have shelled out much more cash to get the best. If you want the best, then get a Japanese made knife and expect to pay more than 25,000 yen. This knife pretends to be in that league and it is not. All this said, this knife is doable and it is not terrible. I had to sharpen and hone it a lot, which was a disappointment. If it had cost about 3 to 4 thousand yen, then that would have been a much fairer price for this slightly-above-average knife. If you want a good knife, go big on your spending and get the best Japanese made knife you can afford. I know I should have.