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I want to preface this review by saying that I never liked Kurouchi knives.  I thought they were really ugly, and I was planning on polishing the sides of this knife upon arrival.  Opening the box was exciting.  For a long time now I have been looking forward to playing around with a Takeda.  The 270 yanagi seemed like a good place to start, as a slicer gets a lot of use in my day to day cooking.  When I opened up this box, I was shocked at how beautiful the knife was.  This knife actually changed my opinion of kurouchi blades.  The handle was equally beautiful.  Overall, the fit and finish of the knife was excellent as expected.  The initial edge out of the box was well ground and sharp, albeit a little toothy and coarse.  There were no flaws whatsoever.  I cut up about 2 lbs of miropoix, a couple heads of elephant garlic, about 10 tomatoes, and trimmed, cleaned, and portioned a tenderloin of beef.  The knife preformed very well.  Not too thick, not to delicate.  The knife was a little blade heavy, but that is to be expected at this length.

After sharpening and polishing the edge on my stones, the edge only got better.  This aogami super core holds an amazing edge and is so easy to sharpen.  With use, the blade developed a beautiful blue/grey patina.  I found that it was minimally reactive with all of the acidic foods I was working with (ranging from tomatoes and onions to lemons and limes).  With continued use, I noticed just one problem.  The edge is ground very thin, which is great.  However, the knife behind the edge, where the kurouchi part begins, is thicker.  This has caused some very minimal wedging when working with very crisp foods.  However, when using long pulls for slicing, this wedging in minimized.  On the whole, however, this knife was a joy to use on both raw and cooked foods.  I would also like to note that I experienced NO chipping on the blade whatsoever… none at all. 

Overall, I think this is a truly spectacular knife that I am happy to have in my kit.  Not only does it add beauty to my kit, but it performs as well as any knife I have used before.  Even when being used as a chef's knife normally would, this knife performs amazingly.  From the shape of the handle, to the blade geometry, this blade is a pleasure to work with.  I would highly recommend this Takeda knife to people interested in a great slicer/sujihiki.