Editorial Standards

Every article published by Japanese Knife Lab follows the standards and procedures set out below. This page documents how we work, so readers can judge our reporting against a clear and public benchmark.

Sources

The credibility of a knife article depends on where its information comes from. We prioritize primary sources whenever possible. Where an article is a desk comparison built from published specifications and public sources rather than hands-on testing, it says so at the top of the article.

Primary Sources (preferred)

• Our own single-session cutting comparisons of knives bought at retail (the Kappabashi field tests)
• Photographs and notes taken during those tests
• Purchase receipts, for the prices we quote

Secondary Sources (supporting)

• Manufacturer spec sheets and official catalogs
• Peer-reviewed metallurgy and materials science papers
• Official publications from METI and traditional-craft associations
• Specialist books (with full bibliographic citations)

What we don't use

• Anonymous forum or social-media claims
• Undisclosed paid reviews or sponsored content presented as editorial
• Numbers we can't trace back to a verifiable original source
• Unverified AI-generated assertions

Fact-Checking

Every numerical claim in an article — HRC hardness, price, blade length in millimeters, weight in grams, release year — must be backed by a verifiable source. The editorial team checks each article before publication.

Verification process

1.The writing editor attaches a source to every factual claim, inline or in footnotes.
2.The editorial team cross-references every number against its source before publication.
3.Unverifiable claims are either removed or labelled "Japanese Knife Lab estimate".
4.If an error surfaces after publication, we correct it within 24 hours of detection.

Affiliate Disclosure

Japanese Knife Lab earns a referral commission on purchases made through links to the Kiwami online store (kiwami.top) and on experience bookings made through Wabunka (wabunka-lux.jp). These are the only affiliate programs we currently use. Each such link is marked as an affiliate link where it appears, and the full disclosure, with dates, is on our team page.

Our commitments

• Affiliate links never influence ranking position or rating in our articles.
• Kiwami is one of the six shops in our Kappabashi field test and receives no ranking preference: the scores were fixed on the test day in April 2026, before affiliate tracking (22 May 2026) and purchase buttons (1 June 2026) were added.
• Sponsored content, if we ever publish any, will be labeled "Sponsored" at the top of the page.
• Every recommendation states its basis — a hands-on field test or a specification comparison — and we never describe a knife we have not bought and used as "tested".

We comply with the FTC Endorsement Guides (U.S.), the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, and Japan's stealth-marketing regulations enforced by the Consumer Affairs Agency since October 2023.

Corrections Policy

Errors are always logged, never silently overwritten. Readers' trust depends on the transparency of our corrections.

Minor corrections

Typos and formatting fixes. We log the correction date and the change at the bottom of the article.

Factual corrections

Corrections to HRC, prices, dimensions, or dates. A correction box appears at the top of the article, and the URL is resubmitted via the Indexing API.

Major errors

Errors that change the article's conclusion trigger a retraction. The retracted page redirects to a corrected version with a public note.

AI Usage Policy

We use AI tools as part of our editorial workflow — but no article on this site is published without human editorial review. AI-only content is never published.

How we use AI

• Permitted uses: translation between our four languages (checked against the source text by the editorial team before publication), outline assistance, grammar and style checks.
• Prohibited uses: generating facts or numbers, writing review conclusions, filling gaps in unverified data.
• Images: some hero and section illustrations on the homepage, hub pages and guides are AI-generated still lifes of unmarked knives and tools. We never use AI images as product photos, as field-test evidence or to show a shop — the photographs in our field tests are our own.

Every published article goes through human fact-checking and a final check by the editorial team before publication. We do not currently use outside translators or proofreaders; how translations are produced is described on our team page.

Conflict of Interest

Our commercial relationships — currently the Kiwami (kiwami.top) and Wabunka (wabunka-lux.jp) referral programs — are disclosed with dates on our team page.

Knives in ranking articles are bought at retail with the editorial team's own budget, and we do not accept samples from manufacturers or retailers. Referral commissions do not affect ranking position or coverage. Any change to these disclosures is added with its date.