So I’m late in this topic,but can offer some advice. Bought my first jap.knife 20 years ago.
have both vg10 and white metal and some blue. Prefer the stainless for everyday use and white aogami for sushi ,yanagiba or tuna knife ,have both.
Watanabe hand made me 3 stainless knife ,chef,slicer and large heavy deboning.Made me large blue carbon cleaver,so sharp I don’t let anybody use it,very dangerous.
for everyday sushi,a stainless sujiiki,slicer.Nenox.
then deba for fish ,white metal,and for easy labor,stainless shun kiritsuke for poultry,shun tomato knife, kamikoto zirconium series and vegetable knife both stainless and white metal.Also have Glestain and Nenox chef knife
hand made knives,glestain and nenox easy to sharpen.(stainless)
have all the shapton collection of stone for stainless, and the natural stone collection for blue and white metal.
Shuns are a pain to sharpen…they sharpen them for free but at ups 30$ each way to Them, it gets expensive.
bought shapton special vg10 320 grit stone and do it myself.much cheaper!
Dont buy anything over 8000 grit, unless you are a fanatic…I have 15k and30k and have never used them.
Lately jap.knives have gone down in price,kamikoto have superb design,great prices ,but ROC hardness is 55 to 56,less than a great Japanese knife.
so you save a lot and can afford a few of their stones.Sharpen more often😇
happy hunting