Few Kyoto houses bridged two traditions as deliberately as (信国), the Yamashiro- lineage whose work runs from the period through and on, in a western branch, into the age. The first generation, the smith the counts as , is the master of the Enbun, Koan and Joji years; the older registers placed a founding back in the Kenmu era, but the published sources set that legend aside, since no work survives so early and the style of the oldest dated blades connects directly with that of Sadamune. Two inheritances meet in him. By blood he belongs to the Ryokai line, recorded as son or grandson of Ryo Hisanobu and therefore of descent; by training he is said to have studied under Sadamune, counted among the Sadamune , the three brilliant pupils. The name then passed on: a change-of-generation with Eitoku, Shitoku and Meitoku dates stands at the close of , and in early come the so-called Oei , Saemon-no-jo and Shikibu-no-jo, conventionally the third generation. The published commentary keeps these hands apart and notes that several smiths of the signature appear within the period alone. Through the line moved to Buzen and then , where it served the Kuroda house of Fukuoka as retained smiths and flourished as the group of Yoshisada, Yoshimasa, Yoshitsugu, Yoshikane and Shigekane.
A single steel underlies the whole school. The is an mixed with that flows toward the and stands into , with thick and entering frequently; on the finer-forged pieces a streak-like rises, and that -tinged surface is read as the visible of the Ryokai pedigree. Over it the temper divides into the manners the sources name together: a expressing the Kyoto tradition, refined in with fine and a niju-ba tendency, carried on and ; and a mixed with inheriting the Sadamune style, laid thick in , with , , and conspicuous , on the most flamboyant pieces stringing into a two-tiered . From the late succession into the Oei generation a third range enters, a -led whose tell is paired linked across the valleys by a low into a , arrow-notch, profile, with , and niju-ba on the liveliest blades. Above all stands the carving the sources call the house art, the of , , , , and the invocation of , often layered one over another in ; few smiths of the age are so consistently identified by what they carved. The branch carried the -leaning forward and added a with , Yoshikane reaching toward - with deep and thick , Shigekane ranked highest in skill within his group and noted as a copyist of who emulated Fudo Kuniyuki at the Hama Palace.
To is to read the Kyoto traces that part him from Sadamune: the , the niju-ba, and the that drifts into along the . Within the long succession the remains the touchstone, his dated work the standard against which unsigned blades and generation questions are resolved, the reversed left-form marking the Oei Saemon-no-jo, the the daigawari hand. The best members rank Jo-jo under Fujishiro, and the carving reputation is the constant thread, distinguishing these blades from the plainer utilitarian grooving of contemporary . Provenance runs through the great houses: the Kuroda once carried by Kuroda Nagamasa, a Hongan- held to have been cherished by Rennyo Shonin, the signed Arao descended in the Asano of Geishu, pieces in the Sanada, Tosa Yamauchi and Tamura families, and a bestowed on the Owari Tokugawa. Examples rest today in the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Kyoto National Museum, shrines such as Atsuta and , and long-held private collections, with the smiths' shogunal-command pieces preserving the historical episodes that produced them.