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Creating Culture: Volume Eight
Welcome to our Creating Culture series, which is a column from Ryo Tanaka, our third generation president. He has run Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide for many years and as this is a family business with seventy years of history, the family and team here has much information and knowledge to share!
These have been translated from Japanese, so please keep this in mind that words and meanings may not be 100% accurate or correct. A text version of each image is provided for accessibility.
To see the Japanese version, please look at our Japanese social media accounts, such as our Instagram.
Hello, everyone.
My name is Ryo Tanaka, and I am the third generation president of Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide.
In this column, I will focus on talking about knives directly, their makers, and continue to discuss the keyword “creating culture.”
Please read our previous columns too, if you are curious.
We are gradually starting to feel spring approaching us.
For this column, I want to discuss the theme of preventing “cultural consumption” I have talked about in earlier columns.
One of the main reasons Japanese techniques are recognized worldwide is due to the immense amounts of “feedback” artisans have acquired over the years.
By listening to the opinions of knife users and trying to make better products through trial-and-error, each step of each technique has been finely honed, such as properly creating a secondary cutting edge, or how to do low-temperature forging.
Repeating this endless cycle of improvement and reflection is an indispensable element for the evolution of techniques, and the continuation of culture as a whole.
On the other hand, with the large increase in inbound and international demand, we are seeing many foodstuffs and knives being sold overseas at high prices.
This is a great thing to see, but by cutting out or changing parts of the production process to convert into on-the-spot money, “feedback to sharpen one’s skills” may become “feedback to sell items at a higher price.”
This new feedback is important. Without the flow of money, production simply ceases.
However, in industries that have information and processes passed down through the handiwork of artisans (like kitchen knives), it is still important to create a “cycle of improvement”, which can be done via proper feedback.
I feel what is needed now is a major movement that “connects Japan’s food and tool culture to the future.”
For us, ICHITOI is the place to do just this.
Here, players and stakeholders from various industries gather to share their experiences and wisdom, aiming to create new trends by inspiring eachother.
Even a stream that has dried up can become a large river again by merging with other streams.
This is our belief.
Ryo Tanaka
Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide
3rd Generation President
End of Volume Eight
If you ever have questions for our president, or want to write further comments feel free to reach out to us via our contact page, or message us via our social media accounts. While we can't answer everything, we will always do the best we can to showcase and educate about traditional kitchen knife culture. You can also see this post on our global Instagram!
Of course, our president is always happy to say hello in person too - come by our store anytime, say hello and mention you read his column! While he may be off doing business operations, if he is around he's happy to thank you for coming to visit us and discuss what he's composed.
You can also learn more about knife culture in our other blogs by clicking or tapping here,