In English, kiritsuke vs gyuto is usually written up as a choice between two knives. When I went through the listings at a large Japanese export shop, most of the knives sold under the name kiritsuke turned out to be gyuto, or sashimi knives, with the tip cut at an angle. The knife that Japanese knife shops call a kiritsuke is a different thing, and there were three of them.
What a kiritsuke is in Japan
Japanese knife shops describe it in much the same way. Jikko, a knife shop in Sakai founded in 1900, defines it in its glossary as a Japanese knife used mainly as a combined yanagiba and usuba, that is, a sashimi knife and a vegetable knife in one. The spine is straight, the edge curves up slightly towards the tip, the blade is about the size of a gyuto, and the top of the spine runs in a straight diagonal line down to the point. That diagonal is the part everyone recognises.
Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide, another Sakai shop, adds two things. The kiritsuke is single-edged, ground on one side only, and it was originally popular in the Kanto region, around Tokyo, as a single-edged all-purpose knife. The shop says it is still popular with cooks of Japanese food.
Saito Hamono, a knife shop in Karatsu, gives the origin in one line. In my translation: the kiritsuke was originally a knife for cutting nagashimono cleanly, and in practice it is used as an usuba or a sashimi knife. Nagashimono are dishes set in a mould, such as egg tofu, jellied stock or yokan.
So the Japanese kiritsuke is a single-edged professional knife from the Japanese side of the kitchen. The gyuto came from the other side. It is the Western chef knife, double-edged, which reached Japan in the Meiji era.
The shape and the knife are sold under the same word
Jikko has a second glossary entry, for kiritsuke kakou, which means kiritsuke processing. It is a treatment of the tip, cut straight and diagonally from the spine to the edge in the kiritsuke style, and it is applied to sashimi knives, deba, santoku and gyuto. In my translation of the last line: adding it does not make a big change to what the knife is used for, but it does give you a better view of the tip.
That sentence answers most of the kiritsuke vs gyuto question, because English retail uses one word for both the knife and the tip shape.
What I found in one shop
Hocho-Knife, a Japanese export shop that I link to below, lists each knife with an edge field that says single edged or double edged. On 30 September 2026 I went through every product with kiritsuke in its name, leaving out sheaths sold on their own. There were 179.
Only three of them are the knife that Jikko and Ichimonji describe: the Sakai Takayuki Tokujyo white steel kiritsuke in 240, 270 and 300mm. All three are single-edged, and the listing says for right-handed persons.
The rest are other knives with the kiritsuke tip. The largest group, 69 listings with the edge filled in, is single-edged kiritsuke yanagiba, which is a real Japanese shape: Ichimonji describes the kiritsuke yanagiba as a combination of the kiritsuke and the yanagiba, with a stronger tip that is steadier when you cut in with the point. There are also kiritsuke deba, petty knives and nakiri.
All 28 kiritsuke gyuto listings are double-edged. So are eleven listings sold simply as Kiritsuke or Kiritsuke-Slicer, including the Sabun series. None of the left-handed kiritsuke I found was the knife itself; they were deba and sashimi knives.
Side by side in the same series
The clearest test is a series that makes both a gyuto and a kiritsuke gyuto. I found three on Hocho-Knife, all checked on 30 September 2026.
In the Kanetsune Minamo-kaze series, the 210mm gyuto and the 210mm kiritsuke gyuto are both $433.99. Same steel, same handle, same blade length, same overall length of 348mm, both double-edged. The only number that differs is the weight: 140g for the gyuto, 151g for the kiritsuke gyuto.
In the Kanetsune Namishibuki series, the kiritsuke gyuto is $482.99 and the gyuto $504.99, so the kiritsuke shape is 22 dollars cheaper. In the Keiichi Fujii AUS10 series with the red ring handle, the kiritsuke gyuto is 11 dollars more.
Sabun sells its double-edged stainless knife as a plain Kiritsuke. The 210mm is $89.99, which is exactly the price of the Sabun gyuto of the same length and steel. The kiritsuke weighs 170g and the gyuto 180g.
A difference of minus 22 to plus 11 dollars, and a few grams either way, is what Jikko meant by no big change.
What the tip does and does not change
Jikko names one benefit, a better view of the tip. I would add what the shape means for use. A gyuto has a curved edge that rises into a point, which is why Western cooks can rock it. Kiritsuke gyuto are usually made with a flatter run towards the front and a more upright point. If you mostly push-cut and chop straight down, you may like the flatter front. If you rock the knife, the ordinary gyuto profile does that better. Either way the steel, the grind and the handle decide far more than the tip does, and a gyuto against a santoku or a bunka is a larger difference than this; I went through that in gyuto vs santoku vs bunka.
The real kiritsuke is another matter, because it is single-edged. A single-edged knife steers in the cut, is made for one hand, and is sharpened differently, which I covered in single bevel vs double bevel. Ichimonji is honest about the cost of making one knife do the work of three. It can be used for filleting fish, cutting blocks of sashimi and chopping vegetables, but because it is built for range, some jobs are a strain compared with a knife made for them, and it takes getting used to and some compromise. The same shop notes that the double-edged gyuto is now the usual all-purpose knife.
About the head chef story
English articles often say that in Japanese kitchens only the head chef may use a kiritsuke. I read the Japanese pages of Jikko, Ichimonji, Saito Hamono and Fujiwara Teruyasu, a knife maker in Tokyo, and none of them says anything like it. They describe it as an all-purpose knife, and Fujiwara Teruyasu says it can be used for sashimi, meat and vegetables because the tip is pointed. I cannot rule out that some kitchen somewhere had that rule, but I could not find it in any Japanese source, and it should not decide what you buy.
The price in Japan
The Sakai Takayuki Tokujyo kiritsuke 240mm is sold by Saito Hamono in Japan for 49,300 yen including tax. On Hocho-Knife it is $318.99, which at about 158 yen to the dollar is roughly 50,000 yen. For this knife, buying from abroad costs about the same as buying in Japan. I looked at the same question across more knives in are Japanese knives cheaper in Japan.
Which one to buy
If you want one knife for everything, buy a gyuto. It works for either hand. If you like the look of the kiritsuke tip, buy a kiritsuke gyuto from a series that also makes a gyuto, compare the two prices, and choose on looks and on how you cut. You are not giving anything up either way.
If you already cook Japanese food, you sharpen on stones, you are right-handed, and you want one single-edged knife that covers sashimi and vegetables, the real kiritsuke is what you are after. Expect it to take practice, and expect a carbon steel one to need drying after every use; I wrote about that in patina or rust.
If you are not sure which knife you need at all, start with how to choose a Japanese knife.
The three knives
The least expensive way to own the kiritsuke shape is the Sabun MV stainless Kiritsuke 210mm at $89.99. It is double-edged, it costs the same as the Sabun gyuto next to it, and it was in stock on 30 September 2026. This is the one I would point most readers to.
If you want a kiritsuke gyuto with a Damascus finish, the Kanetsune Minamo-kaze kiritsuke gyuto 210mm at $433.99 is the same price as the gyuto in the same series, HRC 60 to 61 and stainless. In stock on the same date.
The real single-edged knife is the Sakai Takayuki Tokujyo white steel kiritsuke 240mm at $318.99. White No. 2 carbon steel, a magnolia handle, 170g, right-handed only. In stock on 30 September 2026. The 270mm was out of stock when I checked.
Disclosure
I have four approved affiliate partnerships: two with knife retailers, Hocho-Knife and SharpEdge, and two with Japanese language-learning companies unrelated to knives. This page carries three tracked links, all to Hocho-Knife. At about 10 percent, that is roughly 9 dollars for the Sabun, 43 dollars for the Kanetsune and 32 dollars for the Sakai Takayuki. The one I recommend to most readers is the cheapest. My full affiliate disclosure is here.
Sources, checked on 30 September 2026: the Jikko glossary entries for kiritsuke and kiritsuke kakou, the Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide Japanese pages on the kiritsuke and on sashimi knives, the Saito Hamono kiritsuke page, the Fujiwara Teruyasu page on knife types, and the Hocho-Knife product pages for every listing with kiritsuke in its name.