Okubo Kajiya Takenoko Nakiri 250mm Aogami #2

Before anything, a quick language lesson. 'Take' (竹, pronounced ta-ke) is bamboo in Japanese. 'Ko' in this case means child. Ta-ke-no-ko is - you guessed it - child of bamboo or in the real world, bamboo shoots. Think giant bamboo - the thirty-metre / 100 foot high variety. Those kids are big. 

So when harvesting and processing them you need a big knife. Oh look, here's one.

Fresh takenoko are very firm, quite grippy and somewhat splitty. When cutting a bunch of them you do not want an ordinary knife. This is no ordinary knife.

Pick up Okubo san's takenoko nakiri and the world and everything in it seems to shrink. There will never be a bamboo shoot, beet or watermelon that this nakiri cannot conquer.

Just bear in mind, it is rather big.