This product is a collaboration between two of Chiba Prefecture's proudest traditional crafts, Maiwai and Kanto Gyuto, with the cooperation of the Chiba University Institute of Design and Culture Planning. Their skillful techniques are attracting attention from both Japan and overseas. We hope you enjoy this collaboration of dyeing and forging techniques.
Chiba Koushogu Kanto Gyuto
Western-style kitchen knives came to Japan with Western culture during the Meiji era. Sword smiths, who were no longer able to make swords due to the abolition of the sword, started making various types of knives to break new ground, including Western-style knives.
Especially in the Kanto region, high quality beef knives were actively produced. Today, however, handmade beef knives are rapidly declining, and there is only one family in Japan that stubbornly maintains the old-fashioned method.
Maiwai is a set of hanten that Amimoto and the shipowners handed out to their fishermen to share the joy of a big catch.
On the indigo-colored cloth, lucky charms such as Tsurugame and Shochikubai, and fish such as bonito, tuna, and yellowtail that are fried on each fishing boat are drawn in vivid colors, and it is also called "fisherman\'s sunny clothes".
Maiwai, which appeared in the late Edo period, mainly in the Awa area of the Boso Peninsula, reached its peak from the Meiji era to the Taisho era and was popular as a fishing village tradition until the middle of the Showa era.
It is also designated as a traditional craft of Chiba prefecture and is attracting attention from both inside and outside Japan.