Japanese Saw Rant

(9/19/2021)

I'm in the market for a Japanese style saw. Nothing too fancy, just something that is affordable, a good value and is actually manufactured in Japan with some sense quality. So on the level of a Craftsman wrench when Sears stores were a thing or maybe even a modern Harbor Freight. What I absolutely want to avoid is cheap generic junk manufactured in China and sold under a million different unrecognizable brands. But such is the curse of Amazon. If you're not buying a well recognized brand and item it's just flooded with suggestions of counterfit junk and cheap Chinese drop shipping. Anyways I search Amazon for Japanese saws and identify a few brands which leads to some quesions and searching the internet for some real answers. So what the heck is the Amazon top recommended SUIZAN brand saw? I'm highly skeptical of them as they over emphasize being Japanese (some sort of marketing BS?), too many tops results on Amazon (SEO hacking? paying for reviews?) and seem to have a strong social media presence (vapid superficial clickbait testimony?). I was not able to find much on them, the most promising lead is a comment on reddit saying that they're a cheaper variant of Nakaya Eaks but I couldn't find anything to back that up. The webpage for Suizan puts the contact address is in Shibuya, which is about as well known for saws as New York is.

Contrast that with Gyokucho, which is a company that has been around since 1970s. There's enough history and testimony in the past 50 years for me to know that they might not be the absolute BEST saws but they are well priced and have excellent performance. Pretty much all the saw most people will need.

Another example is Z-Saw or Zetsaw. A brand of Okada Hardware which has a long history and "prestige". Definitely not the absolute best but certainly the "best" cheap Japanese saws. The transparent plastic handels on some models should have been a hint. Don't get me wrong, there's a place and purpose for cheap tools. I've bought my fair share of tools from Harbor Freight. I just like to know what I'm getting.

Completely unrelated to the first three is Silky Saws. Very specialized saws for the outdoors. They're awesome, I want one but I don't need it and I would have to try very hard to find every opportunity to use it.