Fukamizu Hamono / Kagoshima

Takao and Kiyohide Fukamizu.

Fukamizu Hamono is all about tradition and the new.

The same might be said of Japan more widely but a look across the company's product offerings tells the story. Beautifully finished carbon-steel wa-bocho stand beside in-house blades that fuse high-grade stainless cutlery steels with a modern Japanese aesthetic.

Fukamizu Hamono has a long corporate history and, as a result, deep experience within its ranks. The company was founded by Koji Fukamizu in 1919, in Makurazaki City at the western tip of Honshu. It's tempting to imagine an enterprise forging a new path with endless entrepreneurial energy in the spirit of pioneers… but things rarely work that way here. Better to imagine the deep well of knowledge of twenty regional smithies nurturing apprentices and sharing the understanding and skills developed over centuries of industry. 

In 1953 Fukamizu san relocated to the Kaneda district of Kagoshima City, a production area of Satsuma’s signature Kaneda blades, in 1964 the company incorporated. Today Kiyohide Fukamizu and son Takao oversee one of Kyushu’s largest and best-resourced producers of fine knives and edge tools, and they’re not resting on their laurels.

In 2017 the company's unique hand-forged Satsuma blades (utilizing Yasugi Specialty Steels’ high-end gingami-3 stainless cutlery steel) were designated a dentou-kougei product by Kagoshima prefecture. Time-honored craft techniques expressed in the most contemporary of materials.