Quality control Bisyodo?
The brush I received had many tiny scratches/cracks throughout the African rosewood handle. Very noticeable and hard to miss with my naked eye. And it seems their course of ramification was to use lots of wood putty to fill all the defective scratches and cracks and then slap on the lacquering. Except the shade of wood putty was the wrong color, much lighter than the rosewood and the clear lacquering only emphasized the flaws… I have many bisyodo brushes in my collection and none of them have this issue. If it was not for the rosewood handle and its beautiful esthetics I surely would not have bought this brush… Now working on a return for this defective handle brush only to find out their return process is a nightmare… yikes! Be aware! I learned the hard way, japanese quality is not always there!