God bless and merry Christmas! I see these blacksmiths being talked about on Reddit and in knife forums but I always smirked at the people who love them. They’re great knives for a great price!

Have both. I knew shibata was great but kobayashi totally blew me away. I guess it's up to shape preferences, best lasers around.

I love the passion for knives you both have! And I enjoy your videos. Something that does affect my enjoyment and sometimes causes me to skip a video are the breath sounds. I've heard you mention allergies and I know you don't edit the videos. So, not trying to be a jerk here. The sound quality has definitely improved over the years. But, if I could encourage you to try to reduce those sounds I think it would give your videos broader appeal. A few things you could try: mic placement - getting the mic farther away could help. Maybe a shotgun mic over the counter? A physical filter attached to the mic could help like a pop filter. But, the biggest help would be either 1) eliminating the sound source (nasal strips, breathing exercises, decongestants, allergy medication - again not trying to be critical and I definitely have no medical knowledge). 2) running the audio through a post-processing software to eliminate the breath sounds (this is very easy and cheap to do with today's technology, it's just one click). Anyways, I thank you for your videos. I really do enjoy them and I apologize for being somewhat critical here. Definitely not trying to suggest you're doing anything wrong, just trying to encourage you too keep going and improving the video production.

Thanks for the video Greg! As an suggestion you can cut same blueberry with 2 knives.

The shibata probably has a toothier finish. That's why it performed better on the blueberry test and the kobayashi performed better on the bess and the paper. Hear that shibata usually finishes his knives with different grits on each side of the blade. One side is finished at a higher grit so the knife can glide better through dense veggies and the other side is finished at a lower grit so the knife bites better on things like a tomato skin

Merry Christmas to you and your family my friend

Shibata is most thin edge, The hollowing is so good that you can cut a carrot or pumpkin without forcing

Beautiful knives! What would you say is the basic difference in cutting performance or usage between a Gyuto and a Santoku?

Any chance you will test the RH Preyda Arkansas Water Stones? There is a 400, 1k, 3k, 6 and 8. Hybrid water stone made with processed Arkansas novaculite in the matrix. They seem fairly splash and go. Every grit level seems similarly priced so each grit seems either well priced or premium premium priced depending on what is on the market.

i don't own a Kobayashi but i own a Shibata AS 240, it cuts so well

I understand that you are trying to be objective and scientific. But I don't use a sharpness tester while cooking and I do not torcher my blueberries before I eat them :) and out of the box sharpness doesn't impact my purchasing decisions. What I am really interested in is how it performs on carrots, onions and potatoes after a good "Never A Dull Moment" laser sharpening session. Then I would like to hear your "personal "views on which cuts those better and by how much? Then have your wife try it and get her opinion because she has les overall strength than you do and your looking pretty ripped these days.

What's the best cutting laser? Tell me so I know please

Are these insanely expensive knives?

Takamura Sg2 Migaki at 1.5mm spine thickness, or Hatsukokoro Hayabusa A.S, beats the c...p out of these 2 in performance 😉

This might be a weird comment, but you look... black, I mean African American. It's something to do with the lighting and camera I think... Anyway Shibata all the way. The finish just can't be beat. And I prefer the flatter belly.