The Culture and Japanese Kitchen Knives

The Samurais' "Katana" and the Vikings' "Sword"

We can see obvious differences between Japanese Samurai Sword "Katana" and western traditional "Sword". Do you know the same thing can be said between Japanese and western kitchen knives?
Feature characteristics of "Katana" are the sharpness and the hardness, on the other hand, toughness and flexibility are "Sword's". There is a view that they originate from the difference of physique between the Japanese and western people. The Japanese tend to pursue sharpness because of their poor physical force and physique. The sharpness may help to cut things with less force.
However, the sharpness is not necessary as much as the Japanese need for western people because of their good physical force and endowed fine physique. They would prefer heavier blade in order to enlarge cutting function and studied to get the blade have flexibility for easy control. In addition, the flexibility brought less corrosion for the blade.

As you may already know, the eating habit is also different, for example, the Japanese eat more fishes and western people eat more meats. That is why, we may be able to say that kitchen knives have been developed differently adapting to each way of life.
When we cut fishes into slices, bones are not as hard as meat, which means that even if we make the edge harder for more sharpness, nick won't be appeared. Also on our culture, sharpening with whetstone, might support development of original skills for making kitchen knives. Also, we can say the other differences between us, i.e., way of thinking for foods, religious backgrounds etc.