Originally Posted by
Noah Magnuson
I would hesitate to claim actual sharpness is superior in one or the other. Hardness, brittleness, sharpenabilty, etc. often differ between the western and Japanese chisels and planes (can't speak for current Chinese metallurgy), but the level of sharpness can be achieved with either. It is often an issue of whether you tend to work a lot of very hard woods or not whether one functions better or not, but the same can be said even for the many different "western" tool metals.
I definitely find it is worth having a small kit of Japanese saws regardless, and I find the Japanese saws function extremely well in certain cases for me like flush and trim cuts and very fine work, but I really like my western saws for most things and I seem to keep the cut true more easily. I have no experience with Japanese planes. I like my PM-V11 chisels and can't imagine much difference in function between good western and good eastern chisels.