Both knives are rectangular, both are for vegetables, and in photos they are easy to confuse. Japanese knife shops do not confuse them. They sell them as two different tools, at different prices, for different cooks. I compared what two Japanese knife shops and one tool shop say about each, then priced the same steel in both shapes in Japan and on an export site.
If you only want my pick: the Sakai Takayuki INOX nakiri 180mm, $109.99 and in stock when I checked on 20 October 2026. The reasons, and who should buy something else, are below.
The difference you can see
Look at the back of the blade. A nakiri is ground on both sides. An usuba is ground on one side only, with a flat or slightly hollow back.
Honmamon, a Japanese shop that sells knives and other tools, says this is the quickest way to tell them apart, and adds that the usuba is usually thinner and sharper. Jikko, a knife shop in Sakai that has been in business since 1900, describes the nakiri as a double-edged all-purpose knife that has been used for a long time, and the usuba as a single-edged knife for fine work.
That one difference decides most of what follows: how the knife cuts, how you sharpen it, which hand it is made for, and what it costs.
What each one is for
Jikko says the usuba is essential for slicing a daikon into a continuous thin sheet, the technique called katsuramuki, and for thin slicing in Japanese cooking. Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide, another Sakai shop, says the same in its sharpening guide: the usuba is the knife for decorative cutting and katsuramuki, and Japanese cuisine cannot do without it.
The nakiri is described in plainer terms. Honmamon says that for large vegetables such as cabbage and napa cabbage, the nakiri is the better knife, while the usuba suits peeling and detailed work. It also says the thinner usuba damages the fibres of the vegetable less, which keeps more of the flavour.
So the usuba is a specialist knife from the professional Japanese kitchen. The nakiri is a household knife for chopping vegetables, and I covered how it was later replaced in most Japanese homes by the santoku in nakiri vs santoku.
Two shapes of usuba
There are two kinds of usuba, and you will see both names in listings.
Jikko explains that the Kanto or eastern style is square at the tip, and the Kansai or western style has a spine that curves down to a sharp point, which makes detailed work easier. The Kansai style is called kamagata usuba, sickle-shaped usuba. Jikko adds that when people in Japan just say usuba, they usually mean the square Kanto type.
Honmamon says the pointed tip of the kamagata usuba is also handy for cutting seeds out of fruit and vegetables.
At least in the two lines I checked, the shape does not change the price. Jikko sells both shapes in the same eight steels at the same prices, apart from one honyaki model. On Hocho-Knife, the Sakai Takayuki Kasumitogi white steel usuba and kamagata usuba are both $113.99 at 180mm.
Sharpening is the real cost
Ichimonji has a full guide to sharpening the usuba, and it is not a quick read. The points it stresses are these.
The edge of an usuba is almost straight, and if the line of the edge gets uneven, the knife leaves pieces uncut. A straight edge is easy to spoil and hard to put back, so you have to keep checking it while you sharpen.
It should not be perfectly straight. Ichimonji says the ideal is very slightly curved, so that the tip and the heel lift a little off a flat board.
The wide bevel on the front is mostly soft iron, about two thirds of it on an ordinary laminated knife, with the hard steel only near the edge. If you press evenly, you wear away the soft iron and lose the line of the bevel, which the shop says is very hard to restore.
The blade is thin, so if you try to grind the whole bevel at once, you can make the edge too thin and it chips easily.
The back is sharpened flat on a finishing stone, laid completely flat, and only to remove the burr.
None of this is impossible, but it is a different skill from sharpening a double-edged knife. A nakiri is sharpened like a santoku or a gyuto, on both sides, at a small angle. I wrote more about why single-edged knives need their own routine in single bevel vs double bevel, and about which stones to start with in what grit whetstone.
The price gap, same shop and same steel
Jikko lists both knives in several of the same steels, so you can compare them directly. These are its prices including tax on 2 October 2026.
In Japanese steel, its standard home grade, the usuba is 11,000 yen and the nakiri 7,920 yen.
In White 3 carbon steel, the usuba is 20,570 yen and the nakiri 10,560 yen.
In White 2 carbon steel, the usuba is 31,460 yen and the nakiri 16,830 yen.
So in carbon steel the usuba costs roughly twice as much as the nakiri. The nakiri listings were mostly out of stock on that day, so treat these as list prices.
On Hocho-Knife, the stainless Sakai Takayuki INOX line has both shapes. The nakiri at 180mm is $109.99 and the single-edged usuba at 180mm is $152.99, which is 43 dollars more for the same steel and length. The INOX prices were checked again on 20 October 2026, the others on 2 October, and all the knives were in stock.
If you are left-handed
A nakiri works in either hand. An usuba does not. It is ground for the right hand or the left hand, and the left-handed version costs considerably more.
On Hocho-Knife, the Sakai Takayuki Kasumitogi white steel usuba at 180mm is $113.99 for the right hand and $204.99 for the left, 91 dollars more for a mirror image of the same knife. The gap is similar at the other lengths: $98.99 against $177.99 at 150mm, and $167.99 against $302.99 at 210mm.
If you are left-handed and want an usuba, budget for that. If you mainly want to chop vegetables, a nakiri avoids the question entirely.
Which one to buy
Buy a nakiri if you want a home knife for chopping vegetables. It is double-edged, it sharpens like your other knives, it works in either hand, and it costs less. If you do not already own a santoku, read nakiri vs santoku first, because Tojiro, a Japanese maker, suggests the nakiri to people who already own a santoku.
Buy an usuba if you want to learn Japanese vegetable techniques such as katsuramuki and decorative cutting, and you are willing to learn to sharpen a single-edged knife on stones. Choose the square Kanto shape unless you know you want the pointed tip for detail work.
If you are unsure, start with the nakiri. Jikko and Honmamon both present the usuba as the knife for Japanese cooking techniques, not as a better nakiri.
Three knives, checked on 2 October 2026
For most home cooks: the Sakai Takayuki INOX nakiri 180mm at $109.99. Stainless AUS8A, double-edged, 180g, in stock.
To learn the usuba: the Sakai Takayuki Kasumitogi white steel usuba 180mm at $113.99. White 3 carbon steel, which rusts if left wet, single-edged for the right hand, 180g, in stock.
For a left-handed cook: the left-handed version of the same usuba at $204.99. Same steel and size, in stock.
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. Since 2 October 2026 there is also one more link to the same Sakai Takayuki INOX nakiri 180mm near the top of the page. At about 10 percent, that is roughly 11 dollars for the nakiri, 11 dollars for the right-handed usuba and 20 dollars for the left-handed one. The knife I recommend to most readers is the nakiri, which pays me the least. My full affiliate disclosure is here.
Sources, checked on 2 October 2026: the Jikko Japanese pages on the usuba, the kamagata usuba and the nakiri, and its glossary entry on the usuba; the Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide Japanese guide to sharpening the usuba; the Honmamon article on the usuba and the nakiri; and the Hocho-Knife product pages for the knives above.