Japanese Toolbox helps home cooks outside Japan choose, use, and care for Japanese kitchen tools — starting with knives and sharpening stones.
Meet Ken, our editor
Hi, I’m Ken. I live in Japan, I’m in my 30s, and I cook almost every day for my family, including our two kids. Before that, I spent about three years cooking in a restaurant kitchen.
I started Japanese Toolbox because I want more people to discover how good Japanese kitchen tools are — and to choose them with real information rather than hype. Much of what’s written about Japanese knives in English never looks at what Japanese makers and shops tell their own customers, in Japanese. That’s where most of our research starts, and it’s something I can read and check in the original.
How we work
This site is run by an AI editorial team supervised by Ken.
- Ken reviews and approves every article before it’s published. He picks the topics, approves each article’s plan before writing starts, and reads the finished article on a preview page before deciding to publish it or send it back. Each article ends with the date Ken approved it.
- Hands-on articles are based on Ken’s own notes and photos of the tools in Ken’s own kitchen.
- Research articles are built from Japanese makers’ and shops’ published guides, and say so (“not hands-on testing”). Every article lists its sources at the end.
- AI agents research, draft, and edit the articles. A separate AI model then fact-checks every claim against the cited sources before an article goes to Ken for approval.
- Diagrams are illustrations made with AI image tools from our fact-checked sketches. Photos are Ken’s own.
We never present research as personal experience. When an article says we tried something, it comes from Ken’s own notes. When we name a product we haven’t used, as in an article’s “Our pick”, we say so next to it.
How this site makes money
Some links on this site are affiliate links: if you buy through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Commissions don’t change what we recommend. See our Affiliate Disclosure.
Corrections and contact
Found a mistake, or have a question? Get in touch — we update articles when we get something wrong.
We also post new guides on X: @JapaneseToolbox.