Japanese Knife Index包丁索引

About

Method & disclosure

Katsushika Hokusai, “The Swordsmith” (1802), The Met
Katsushika Hokusai, “The Swordsmith” (1802), The Met · Katsushika Hokusai (The Met, CC0) · CC0

Who we are

Japanese Knife Index is edited and published by The JKI Editors (JKI編集部), based in Tokyo. Contact: [email protected].

Japanese Knife Index is a reference catalogue of Japanese kitchen-knife makers. It is compiled from public retailer catalogues (Chubo Knives, Hocho Knife, Japanese Chef's Knife, Knifewear, Tokushu Knife) captured on 2026-10-17.

What “verified” means

A verified profile has been checked by hand against makers' own websites, local-government and trade-association pages, and retailer pages. Each statement links to the page it came from. Where no source was found (founding year, lineage, address), the field is left blank instead of guessed.

Draft entries

Other makers are compiled automatically: steel, knife-type and region tags are pattern-matched from listing titles and descriptions. These pages are marked as drafts and excluded from search engines until verified.

Money

The site will earn through clearly labelled affiliate links, shown only in each maker's “Where to buy & price” table. Shops are ordered by number of listings, never by commission. There are no banner ads. Currently only Hocho Knife links are affiliate links; see the affiliate disclosure.