Little Help - Japanese (?) Field Surgeon's Kit

[Eggoman]

I found this in my Grandma's Stuff. Why? I dunno! I THINK that it's a Doctor's or Surgeon Field Surgery Kit - YIKES! But I STILL don't know why she had it!

I THINK that the marks on the axe/hatchet and the slicer/dicer are Japanese.

Can anyone read/translate the marks for me and offer an opinion regarding what it is? Or is not? Age. etc.? (I'm sorry if I oriented the marks incorrectly...)

Thanks MUCH in advance - my NET54 Brothers & Sisters have yet to let me down!

[Eggoman]

No one?

[nat]

There are two scripts that are native to Japan - Hiragana and Katakana. These are neither. Now, in Japan they also use symbols borrowed from Chinese (they call them 'Kanji'). At least couple of the symbols on your items are used in Japan, but they are the borrowed Kanji.


These two: 上, 世 are used in both Japanese and Chinese. (Incidentally, your second picture, the first close-up, is upside down.) So the symbols that I recognize don't help determine whether this is written in Japanese or Chinese. One thing that you could do is go to google translate, select "Japanese" as the input language, and draw the characters to see what you get. You might find out that it's not Japanese, or you might find out what it says.