Craftsman
KisukeManaka
The story
The business dates to 1872, and its craft has passed through five generations. The heritage up to the fourth generation worked under the house mark 『マ』, known as kane-Ma: black-finished forged kitchen knives, shears and farm tools, sold from a shop called 間中刃物店. A knife store, in plain words. The fifth generation is the reason it is now called something else.
He entered the workshop in 2005 as apprentice to the fourth-generation smith, 間中保夫. In 2014 he succeeded as fifth generation, renamed the shop Manaka Hamono Tanrenjo (間中刃物鍛錬所), a forge rather than a store, and took the smith-name Kisuke, 貴輔. That is the name on his work. It is a smith-name, adopted at succession, and no source we have records any other. In 2025 he moved the workshop from Saitama, the lineage's historic home, to Sanjo, Niigata. The workshop's own words for why: in pursuit of a higher level. A house that had been in one place since 1872 does not relocate lightly.
What sets him apart is documented in his own pages. He taught himself stainless forge-welding, studying the behaviour and particles of iron through the internet and the library, and worked out heat treatment for stainless and powder high-speed steel on his own. The workshop does not use clad stock pre-bonded from stainless, iron and steel. He attaches the steel, forge-welds, anneals, quenches, tempers, runs the sub-zero treatment, sharpens and fits the handle. One person, the whole way through.
The Kisuke (貴輔) lines map that range. The SUS series is White #2 or Blue #2 under stainless he welded himself. The Blue #1 hon-warikomi is chisel work: soft iron split, Blue #1 set in, the blade forge-welded, water-quenched, listed at approximately HRC 64. The ATS-34 series carries an 18Cr stainless jigane, warikomi construction and sub-zero treatment at the same listed hardness. In 2025 the workshop announced a ZDP-189 line named BEAST, and above it sit 琰-ENN- and 黒琰-KOKUENN-, the ENN flagship a 280 mm three-layer kiritsuke gyuto, Blue #1 at the edge under a jigane of damascus-laminated soft iron and Blue #2. It is sold out.
The last time the workshop published a figure, custom orders carried a wait of a year to a year and a half. It deliberately publishes no phone number, and its homepage asks customers not to confuse it with a similarly named shop nearby. The forge answers; the phone does not.
In photographs
Stories
Frequently asked questions
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We trust this information is correct at the time of writing, but it is not an official document and details may change without notice. If you spot an error, tell us and we'll fix it.
