I have written sixteen pieces on Japanese kitchen knives for this site. Each one takes something that English knife guides repeat, and checks it against what Japanese makers, wholesalers and shops write for Japanese customers. They were written one question at a time, so they do not read as a sequence.
This page puts them into the sequence a buyer actually goes through: the shape first, then the steel, then how and where it was made, the handle, the shop, and what happens after it arrives. There are no shop links on this page. Some of the linked articles do have them, and each of those says what I earn.
The short answer
If you want one knife for a home kitchen and you have not bought a Japanese knife before, the answer that comes out of all sixteen pieces is fairly plain. A double bevel santoku of about 170mm, or a gyuto if you prefer a longer blade, in stainless steel, for under two hundred dollars. Then a 1000 grit whetstone and something to keep it flat.
That is not an exciting answer, and most of the pages below explain why the exciting options are either specialised, or less than the label claims.
1. The shape: what you actually need
Most people asking what Japanese knives they need are really asking which of three names to buy. Gyuto, santoku and bunka mean something narrower in Japan than in English, and one large maker describes them differently on its Japanese and English sites. The santoku at around 170mm is what the Japanese trade sells to Japanese homes, by a wide margin, and the reason is the size of a normal cutting board rather than tradition. The full comparison is in Gyuto vs Santoku vs Bunka.
The other shape decision is the bevel. English guides say traditional Japanese knives are single bevel. Tojiro lists 23 traditional shapes, and 17 of them are single bevel only, but those are the professional set. The knife that sat in Japanese home kitchens before the santoku, the nakiri, is double bevel, and so is the santoku. A left-handed single bevel knife is also a different blade, not a mirror image, and costs more on the same shelf. That is covered in Single Bevel vs Double Bevel.
2. The steel: where most of the extra money goes
For carbon steel, the names aogami and shirogami come from the colour of the paper the mill wraps the steel in, and the number after the name is mostly about carbon content. Shirogami 2 is a sensible default if you want carbon. Aogami Super makes sense only if you already sharpen well. See Aogami vs Shirogami.
For stainless, the question is usually VG10 against SG2. One Echizen smith makes the same knife in both, so the price of the steel alone can be seen: the SG2 version costs $116 to $242 more. What the steel maker and two Sakai shops say that buys is in VG10 vs SG2.
Two labels carry a large premium and need checking before you pay for them. The layered pattern sold as Damascus is called suminagashi by the Japanese steel maker, and the layers stop before the edge that does the cutting: Is a Damascus Japanese Knife Worth It?. The word honyaki appears on a $118 stainless knife and on a $998 one, and a Sakai shop and a Japanese maker both define it much more strictly: Is a Honyaki Knife Worth It?.
3. How it was made, and where
Hand forged is a claim many shops make, and one of the hardest for a buyer to check. A Sakai wholesaler published a simple test in English in 2017: if the pattern along the edge is very straight, the blade came from rolled stock rather than a hammer. The rest is in Hand Forged vs Machine Made.
English guides describe three great knife regions. The Japanese government keeps an official list of traditional forging regions, and it has seven names on it. Sakai and Echizen are on it. Seki is not, and three of the regions are ones English buying guides rarely mention. See Japanese Knife Regions.
4. The handle
The same Sakai gyuto is sold eight times with eight different handles, with a spread of $159 between the cheapest and the most expensive. The price list that Sakai publishes shows what an ebony upgrade actually buys. See Japanese Knife Handles.
5. The shop
Most knife shops say the same four things: authentic, direct from Japan, no wholesalers, handmade. A buyer can check none of them. A Sakai wholesaler will put a shop brand on knives for an order of as few as five. What you can check is a short list, and it is in Where to Buy Japanese Knives Online.
If you are travelling to Japan anyway, the price there is not always lower. I priced the same knives in yen and dollars in Are Japanese Knives Cheaper in Japan?.
If you are wondering whether to add a rectangular vegetable knife, the santoku was developed out of it. See Nakiri vs Santoku.
6. After it arrives
Carbon steel changes colour. English guides tell you to build a patina, and Japanese knife houses tell you to wash the blade straight after acidic food. Both are right, within limits, and the mistake that article singles out as the costly one is scrubbing the edge. See Patina or Rust.
Everyone agrees the first whetstone is 1000 grit. On the second stone, the English and Japanese advice split: English guides go up to a finer grit, and a Tsukiji shop, a Niigata maker and a Japanese whetstone company all say to keep the stone flat first. See What Grit Whetstone for a Japanese Knife?.
If the edge chips, Japanese makers list the usual causes, and one of them is the pull-through sharpener people buy to look after the knife. A small chip can be ground out at home on a coarse stone. See My Japanese Knife Chipped.
7. If it is a present
English guides say a knife given in Japan comes with a coin. A Sakai knife house says in Japanese that there is hardly any record of knives being avoided as gifts, and the coin mostly does not appear in Japanese at all. See Is It Bad Luck to Give a Japanese Knife as a Gift?.
How these pages were put together
Each article names its sources and the date prices were checked. Most of the Japanese sources are the pages makers and shops publish for Japanese customers, which I translate where I quote them. Where a Japanese page and the same company’s English page say different things, I say so. When a new knife article goes up, it will be added here.