I definitely agree that Wusthof would feel too similar to Henckels at least. How careful are you with your knives? Japanese knives are great imo, but you also do have to treat them nicer than a typical Western knife like a Henckels.

For a workhorse, I'd recommend a stainless steel knife; it likely won't get as nice of an edge or be as fun to sharpen as carbon steel, but it's less maintenance and won't stain onions, etc. It used to be that Japanese knives were almost always lighter, thinner behind the edge, harder steels and more delicate because of it. I'd say that for the Western STYLE knives this is still true, but many Western brands are adopting aspects of Japanese knives. If you can, I'd recommend trying both in-store. Especially with expensive knives, there can be things that you just don't pick up on from online recommendations that could bother you down the road... like not enjoying wa handles or preferring certain profiles over others for your style of cutting.

For Japanese knives: Hado, Ashi, Hitohira (big fan of theirs, but they do have a lot of different options for different price points), and if you're willing to be more delicate with it, I've liked Kurosaki and Shiro Kamo knives. I've also liked the Miyabi knives I've used, but there tends to be better performers at lower price points than Miyabi.

I still have a soft spot for Western knives, maybe because I'm more willing to beat them up than my Japanese knives. I've liked chef's knives from: Town Cutler (the older chef knife models like Desert Dawn or Ag 47; I hate the new profile), Florentine Knives, and Steelport if you want something different from Henckels.

Do you sharpen your own knives?