A Japanese YouTuber named Jun, of the channels Jun’s Kitchen and My Husband Is Japanese, was feeling a bit ripped off after paying a man $3 for a dull, rusty kitchen knife. Luckily, there was real treasure hidden underneath all that rust. In an extremely satisfying YouTube video, Jun polished the knife to a mirror sheen and sharpened it enough that it can now cut thin, translucent slices of vegetable.
After making the video, he tracked down the exact model of knife online and discovered it retails for around $100. All it needed was a little work.
This was the most popular video on Reddit Monday, and for good reason. It’s soothing to watch the rust disappear and then watch the knife cut through food with incredible precision. It offers the same warm fuzzy feeling as those relaxing hydraulic press videos, the “1,000-degree knife” series, or the various contenders for “the most satisfying video in the world.” In fact, one of those videos showed a knife gliding smoothly through a tomato—knife skills are a staple of the “most satisfying” genre.
“This video has everything,” wrote one Reddit commenter. “A disgruntling sales story that ends in pro revenge, a rusty old knife being meticulously cleaned and polished into a work of art, insane cutting and artisan chopping skills, some minor food porn, a good looking man, an adorable kitty that gets scritches. 15/10, would watch again.”
Jun definitely got more than his money’s worth with this knife, and we got more than our money’s worth with this video.