She lives on her own in this apartment, it's pretty common to live with your parents in Japan even after graduation, but in her case she moved out, surely after she got her current job, in fact about 70% of single workers in Japan ages 18-34 years old continue to live with their parents.

How long does it take for you to wear makeup?

He loves to cook and she usually makes her own breakfast to get a good start on the day and I guess this morning she is making a fresh smoothie for Japan standards.

Her apartment is quite spacious for someone in their twenties, but it's one of those advantages of living outside of any of the major Japanese cities.

She commutes to work by car in total 20 minutes door to door before working at her current company, NEne studied at a specialized agricultural high school, focused on food production, food science, and overall nutrition.

Although her current job didn't align exactly with her studies when she heard about the opportunity, she decided to go for it.

So I'm back with another day in the life, I am super excited for this one.

Finally made it outside of Tokyo.

I'm at the factory right now waiting for NEne, she should be parking her car soon.

Good morning, did you sleep well, are you nervous?

Well let's see how the day goes.

So nene works as a knife technician and drilling J.

Henkel's Japan, originally a 291 year old german knife maker who eventually set up an office in Japan and later acquired the knife factory here in Seki city, also known in Japan as a city of blades, crafting flawless samurai swords and knives for more than 800 years and producing half of Japan's total knives in the city alone.

Today, 90% of the company's knives sold in Japan are actually made at this factory has been working at the knife factory for five years now in the Kaizen department is in itself a Japanese term meaning continuous improvement in a gradual methodical process.

Her day starts with a team meeting where she's assigned specific tasks, wow, they're checking their hands.

Apparently it's absolutely critical that their hands must be free of cuts or injuries that could potentially fall the knives.

Oh, she's already on her first task inspecting the sharpness of the knives in Japanese.

These particular ones are used as the factory sharpens older knives sent in by their customers and it's her responsibility to verify that the re sharpen knives mean all the quality requirements to ship back to their customers.

So how much paper did it cut?

Damn the paper didn't stand a chance.

Anyways, let's see what she has next as part of the Kaizen group throughout the day.

She's also tasked with performing random inspections on knives being crafted that day to ensure that each knife meets the factory strict quality standards, which also means that she's responsible for knowing the details about each and every night that's crafted in the factory, including the entire build process for that individual knife and the technical requirements each one must satisfy in order for her to fully perform the inspection.

Okay, She's moving on to a different building again.

Do you always walk this much?

So how many people are doing the same task?

Okay, so for your job, what's the most important thing?

So what are you checking now, naturally being tasked with the responsibility to inspect every type of crafted knife, it requires her to continually visit different sections all throughout the factory, which can be tiresome for many people.

But she enjoys the opportunity to engage with other workers outside of her team and welcomes the regular walks.

So it looks like nene is going to be taking notes for just a little bit.

So while she's doing that, let's cut out of here and see what we can find.

Let me quickly break down how a japanese knife starts.

Okay, so I think here, this is where they do the heat treatment.

This is a yucky in a process where untreated pressed steel blades are heated by a specifically designed furnace to more than 1000 degrees Celsius 1832 degrees Fahrenheit.

Oh Elsa, look at those frozen blades after the initial cooling, The hardened blades are moved to an accelerated freezing state.

In fact, the tempering process of heating and freezing the steel blades restructures and stabilize it on a molecular level, forming a perfect blade that's not only hard but flexible at the same time.

Once tempered the blade tends to come out slightly warped from expanding and shrinking due to the extreme heat and cold.

Izumi Tori is a process where the blade is hammered and straightened by hand, requiring a true craftsman to recognize the subtle imperfections in each blade.

Thank you.

Okay, so it looks like at this place they assemble all the knives by hand.

So japanese knives are known to be some of the sharpest knives in the world, but historically their handles are not one of their strengths and needed to be regularly maintained.

However, the factory has developed its own specialized techniques to build stronger handles while also doing it by hand before the blades receive their final sharpening, Their finished off here.

Hi, can I talk to you?

What are you working on your on?

Apparently, she smooth out bumps and extra bonding and that's before and after.

So it's 10:00 right now and I just heard a bell ring and all of a sudden people just started turning off the lights and I think they're taking a break now all the workers in the factory get 3, 10 minute breaks throughout the day.

It's fairly mandatory as each job requires a significant amount of focus and concentration?

So breaks are crucial for maintaining performance as well as preventing injury.

What are you doing now?

Why is this test important?

She's also responsible for testing the knives in the laboratory using various machines, tools and even chemicals.

She says that it was quite a challenge to memorize all the tests, procedures and how to even use the machines.

So it required a lot of effort in studying for her in the beginning to master this part of the job.

It looks like she's sharp with it now though by the way, as a kid did you think you would become a knife technician was still in high school?

A friend who worked at the factory told her about working as a knife technician which helped spark her interest enough so that she scheduled a tour of the factory to learn more about it.

Oh now now has to go to the monthly improvement meeting.

She was nervous about this morning.

Apparently representatives from each department review their achievements for that month and discuss how they can improve is going to be fine.

What could go wrong, how'd it go?

Yeah.

Finally lunch time it looks like she's gonna eat with her coworker.

Kind of interested to see what they're gonna eat.

What are you making?

She says for lunch?

He often orders the factory provided bento box since it's offered at a reasonable price.

In fact it's part of typical japanese factory culture to offer this type of bento box so that all the employees can eat at the same time while not having to leave the facility And that this factory at 160 m a dollar $18 is a deal that's hard to beat.

What's in it today.

What's your favorite dish?

Have you been with the company for a long time?

Cool.

So what do you like most about the job after lunch?

She performs periodic tests in the kitchen on new knives still in development, cutting various foods and comparing it with the existing line of knives.

As it's one of the responsibilities to coordinate these tests.

He says that it's a great opportunity for her to view the latest knife crafting technologies firsthand before it's ever released, is going to be doing a little bit more testing.

So you all know what we do.

Let's see if you guys can handle some more exploration.

Okay, let's see what else we can get into.

This.

Looks like a store.

Hi, what's this shop board?

So do employees get discounts like how much?

There's just so many knives here?

But I think this is not all the knives that they produced here in the factory.

This is mia be one of the world's sharpest knives, a handcrafted japanese knife brand that's only made in this factory and some marked with its own unique Damascus style design on the blade that was kind of.

Cool.

Let's see what else they have?

Excuse me, can I ask what you do, what are you working on now, can I see it?

Maybe it's confidential information, How many prototypes do you make for one model?

Wow, that's so many here.

They designed two products each year, one for Japan and one for the international market.

They create all of their own designs from cad drawings to designing parts.

Thank you.

Hello, what's this room for?

Oh you have a factory manager?

Cool.

How long have you been with the company and what's your favorite night?

Absolutely.

That's a really cool knife, wow, this is a Miyabe read morimoto knife.

A cold lab knife with Iron chef morimoto.

This is so cool.

Look at all of these people sharpening knives.

Finally, the knives are sharpened, known in Japanese as han Basuki.

Apparently sharpening the knives by hand is one of the most challenging parts when crafting a knife so much.

So the factory itself only has nine specialists who have mastered the skill and at the moment only two who are skilled enough to perform key wami Basuki the most extreme and technical knife sharpening possible.

And this lady is one of them.

Hi, can I ask you some questions.

So what's the difference between where you were and here.

So what's the most difficult part of this job and what do you like about your job?

Thank you.

Once the knives are sharpened and finished, each one receives a thorough cleaning and inspection depending on the Japanese knife, the production process and duration varies.

Some of the handcrafted knives can be completed in a month.

While some of the high end handcrafted knives require more than 100 individual processes and more than three months to complete every single detail accounted for to ensure a consistent and high quality Japanese knife is crafted each and every time.

What are you doing now is also responsible for inspecting finished knives before being packaged.

If she discovers even the slightest flaw, she sends it back to the appropriate section so it can be reworked.

Every single handcrafted knife must be perfect before it's shipped out what's next.

Despite being part of the kaizen group and having a deep understanding of the entire process of how knives must be crafted, she must continue to work on her technical skills, such as knife sharpening.

Although the thousands and thousands of hours spent on her sharpening technique is never completely forgotten.

Time away from the skill will gradually dull her techniques, so she always sets aside time to maintain her technical knife crafting skills.

Nana says the, she's proud of all the skills she has acquired over the years and excited every day to learn and improve on her techniques.

And she takes satisfaction in knowing that the knife, she helped handcraft will ultimately be appreciated by someone somewhere in the world, All of this, keeping her motivated and looking toward the future.

At the end of the day, she has a little bit of desk work and she's also responsible for entering logs for the inspections she completed that day.

You still have work to do.

Finally done.

What are you doing after this is hosting a party, which is a very typical Japanese home party basically consisting of a group of people gathering in someone's home to sit around the hot pot, share food drinks and stories usually in the winter, but can also be done any time of the year today.

They're specifically having Sukiyaki ah oh cool.

Her friends are here, wow, they're doing it up and having heated you beef, a wagyu brand from this area.

Do you girls often meet up like this?

So what do you do in your free time?

What are you girls drinking?

Oh, I see.

They all drove here I guess it's a weekday, so they're keeping it mellow tonight.

That's Gucci wagyu beef fat, it adds a distinctive sweet flavor to the dish.

Many supermarkets offered for free, so it's commonly used in Japan when cooking steaks and hot pot after a full day performing at the highest level.

She appreciates being able to send her mind away from work to enjoy a home cooked meal with her good friends.

Alright, so there you go, it looks like they're gonna finish dinner probably around 8 30 then after that NEne will go and clean up and then probably take a bath and then finish off the night, go to sleep at 11 o'clock.

That's pretty much a day in the life of a japanese knife maker.

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