One of my Kickstarter campaigns (and YES, it was a year over schedule, like most Kickstarters - but it did come through in the end!) - a guy making Japanese style knives in Germany. Well, after the very long wait, my knives arrived today - HURRAY! I have to say that they lived up to expectations - gorgeous and are amazing to work with! These will become part of my standard tool set for food preps. The paring knife was amazing cutting razor thin slivers of garlic and onions. The chef's knife has an exaggerated curvature, but it worked really well chopping herbs and veggies. The only last thing will be how well they hold an edge (very sharp right out of the box) and how easy to sharpen once starting to dull.