Japanese Knives Sold on Amazon.com Are Almost Fake
What kind of Japanese knives are selling well on Amazon.com? When I checked Amazon.com with this in mind, I was surprised to find many fake brand-name Japanese kitchen knives for sale.
They may have the same or similar names as famous Japanese kitchen knife brands, but their logos are obviously different.
When I searched for “Japaese knife” on Amazon.com, of the 72 products listed on the top page, only 6 were authentic Japanese products that I was aware of.
Worse, there were no Japanese knives selected in AMAZON’S CHOICE products.
Does it matter if it is made in Japan or not?
Some of the fake Japanese-style knives sold on Amazon.com have high star ratings. One might think that if it is a good product, then it doesn’t matter if it is authentic Japanese or not.
Of course, products made in Japan do not necessarily have high performance, and there may be high-performance counterfeit brand products.
However, with so many fraudulent reviews on Amazon.com, it is doubtful that a five-star rating really indicates the quality of the product. It is hard to believe that a product that falsifies its country of manufacture is not falsifying its reviews.
Also, the use of the Japanese language is a cowardly way to make a product appear to be made in Japan. If you buy a product that you believe is a Japanese knife and it is not made in Japan, you will feel cheated.
Therefore, I would like you to buy authentic Japanese kitchen knives.
How to check out Japanese brands
It is easy for Japanese to identify fake brands, but it may be difficult for non-Japanese to do so.
I have introduced several fake brands in my past posts (1, 2). However, there is no end to the number of new brands that emerge one after another that look Japanese but are not made in Japan.
So I came up with 3 ways for non-Japanese to recognize Japanese brands.
The first thing to check is whether the product is listed as made in Japan. Even a counterfeit brand product that misrepresents the country of manufacture should not be clearly misrepresented. In fact, knives that are labeled as Japanese-style knives but not “made in Japan” are usually made in China.
The next way to check is to learn about well-known Japanese brands; some of the (authentic) Japanese kitchen knives sold on Amazon.com are unknown brands in Japan (for example, Yoshihiro. For more…).
For more information, see the article about famous Japanese knife brands.
The third way to check is to ask a Japanese person. This is because even if you know famous Japanese brands, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish genuine products from counterfeit ones because of the existence of counterfeit brand products with the same name.
If you do not know any Japanese, please ask me. Nevertheless, to make things easier, I would like to present a collection of authentic Japanese brand kitchen knives sold on Amazon.com on this web site.
