The Ryokai school (了戒) took shape in the late- capital of Kyoto, in Yamashiro Province, around the smith Ryokai, who worked through the era names Shoo, Einin, Kagen, Enkyo and Ocho at the turn of the fourteenth century. The old account makes him a son or a pupil of Kunitoshi, and one version has him adopted into Kunitoshi's house; because his dated blades place him almost level with Kunitoshi, however, the reads him more naturally as a contemporary (an aitedeshi, a fellow disciple) who formed his own line within the wider circle. Whichever account one follows, his is the Yamashiro hand softened by a degree, and from him the Ryokai name descended for several generations, his son Ryo Hisanobu (久信) following as the second master, with a Kyushu branch, the Chikushi Ryokai of Bungo and Buzen, forming by the and eras.
What the members hold in common is a quiet manner read against, and just apart from, the parent. Over a packed or that flows toward and stands a little open, fine clings and faint enter, while a whitish rises in the ; this paler, drier , against the clear - or of proper, is the first thing that separates a Ryokai blade from its source. The temper is a calm chu- or , mixing here a little , or , with and entering and sometimes a Kyoto reverse ; and run within a tight that grows austere and, in places, clouds into , the moist soft quality the published sources name again and again as a Ryokai point. The closes into a small , often brushed with a touch of . The school stands so close to Kunitoshi that the two are confused at sight; the attribution settles not on any single feature but on the softer and , the standing , the whitish and the clouding line, the judges noting that compared with Kunitoshi the activity within the temper runs lonelier and the one degree tighter. Against the sister school the distinction is the : where turns a large deep and leaves the line bright, Ryokai closes a small and clouds into . The and the whitish cast carry the line a step toward Yamato and , and downstream toward and the -shaded work that followed.
To a Ryokai blade is to recognize the air of wa-zori and refined steel, then to read the tells that part it from the parent: the leaning to and standing where stays smooth, the in place of bright , and the tight, clouding . Among the members the founder, Ryokai, holds first standing, rated Jo- by Fujishiro and represented by slender and signed with a boldly cut two-character , several carved with and , alongside the bulk of his attributed record in given to him on the hand; one such the published sources call altogether elegant and a representative work, the signature itself of the archetypal type. Hisanobu, the second master, rated Jo-jo , carried the father's on with little change, his rare signed and prized as documentary evidence, one dated piece establishing through his given name that an earlier nationally designated once read as the father's sole work is in fact a joint work of father and son; the remaining members and the later Kyushu generations continue the manner generically. Provenance follows the founder above all: blades passing through the Isahaya, Date and Maeda families, one preserving a tradition that it was a sword worn by Miyamoto , and the finest pieces held and studied in long-standing public and private collections including the Tokyo National Museum, the Sano Art Museum and Monobe Jinja. A signed Ryokai blade in particular is among the scarcer things a collector of Kyoto work will meet, coming to hand only with patience.