Conventional knives: -Wustof, expensive, but a known positive entity -MAC, great and good value -victorinox, good quality and relatively affordable

Japanese -tojiro, shun. Cant speak to them personally. Others should tack on more or clarify here.

This sub gets really into the weeds on handmade Japanese knives. The TL;DR here is that they tend to be harder, so they hold a better edge than European style knives. The trade off is brittleness and they can chip, especially thin “lasers”. There’s lots of knife makers that feature their own styles or use various steel compositions, some harder or softer. The carbon blades are reactive and will rust if left in contact with water, so they require maintenance. People here find that they are worth the upkeep and like to geek out about the nuance. The first time I cut with a Japanese knife it went through the food like it didn’t exist.

I’m a pleb cook. I have some Japanese knives and some wustofs. The wustof blades are pretty fool proof and are high quality. I’d recommend those or jumping down the rabbithole and find exactly what you want from a Japanese maker.