Ha! I appreciate fingerpointing with some knowledge behind it. You're right, I don't currently have any Sakai lasers. Though some of my knives are made in Sakai. The two reasons I'm not stockpiling lasers are: -they're typically manufactured and not hand-forged (most of the better ones are hand-ground, however) and though I have no significant opposition to this, it's not where I wanted to start. I have limited resources and I'd prefer to support to individual craftsmen for now. -I've used a good handful, and I've loved very few. People lose their shit over the Sakai Yusuke, but I can't get into the samples I have. That said, I've owned and loved some Tanaka R2 knives. Crazy thin and also high performing. I'm working on stocking some soon.

The hipsterish feel was not an accident. I wanted clean and hip with both modern and traditional elements. The other side of this spectrum has been done already!