The Hikari(光, Light) is certainly a interesting addition to our collection, it combines a rather unique finish with an uncommon steel, resulting a unique and characterful line at a very friendly price point. Like the name suggests, there are some shining spots that you will discover when you pick it up.
The eye catching feature of this line must be the finish, it is a simple mirror polish with a slight twist. What Hatsukokoro did seems to be a combination of buffing and sandblasting, as the finish they produced on these knives is both reflective but hazy. The haziness is not particularly strong like a kasumi finish, but as you turn the knife agains light, the texture left by the sandblasting will reflect light in a way that makes the blade looks glitter-coated. It's not exciting like a Tsuchime or Damascus, but it is certainly an alternative option to the Migaki finish that are very common at this price point.
The choice of steel is rather interesting, the SLD steel is technically a semi-stainless steel as its chromium level is just on the line of making it fully stainless(13%). This allows it to be quite low maintenance as the steel doesn't form any patina and react very slowly. At the same time, many user of this steel reports that it can take a more keen edge than typical stainless steel. SLD's high alloy level ensures a high level of wear resistance and it's often used on many high end handcrafted knives. Now that we have this steel available on a knife that goes as low as 200AUD (210mm Gyuto), this unique experience offered by this material is much more affordable.
The grinding/blade geometry is slightly convex but not super thin behind edge, which can lead to some wedging and resistance but it does excel at food release. It is a logical solution in my opinion, as the smooth mirror finish will cause strong sticking if the there is no strong geometry to encourage the food peeling off. It is not one of those silky smooth cutting knife but more of a workhorse, the keen edge does feel more towards carbon steel than typical stainless as it initiate the cut fairly quickly on the surface of the food.
Hatsukokoro have always been developing new or improving their existing knives at the budget range, and it seems they have been focusing on optimising the performance of their product and bringing interesting features to the market. Hikari is definitely a result of this effort, it will join the wide range of available knife we can offer and allow more selections at the budget end.