In Bungo Province on Kyushu, the early masters Sadahide and Yukihira appeared and then, for a span, distinguished makers ceased; the repeatedly mark this gap before the line that became the Takada school took hold. The school was founded in the period by Tomoyuki, who arose at Takada Manor (Takada-shō) and signed in the long form "Hōshū Takada-shō Fujiwara Tomoyuki," with dated work surviving from the Shōhei (1349) and Jōji eras into the 1360s. Beside him the registers place Tokiyuki, said to be his son or disciple, and Masayuki, thought to belong to a separate line, whose Kentoku 2 (1371) carries Southern Court dating and a relief following the example of Yukihira. From these roots the lineage ran continuously through and on into the era. The naming itself tracks the periods: smiths prefixed Fujiwara; from they signed Taira and shared the characters 盛・守・鎮・統, so the group is broadly called Taira-Takada (Heike or -Takada); late in the line they returned to Fujiwara, and that stream, carried into the period, is distinguished as Fujiwara-Takada. Named hands in the include Taira Naomori (a dated Ōnin 3, 1469), Taira Nagamori, Takada Tatemori (Meiō 10, 1501), Taira Shizunori, and Fujiwara Shinkiyo.
Across the blades a consistent vocabulary recurs. The is mixed with , frequently tending toward standing grain () and, in the early work, drifting toward or ; and appear, the steel often carries a darkish tone with patches of , and a whitish (sometimes a faint ) stands out conspicuously. The temper runs from and mixed with up to , with adhering and and entering; and run through, and in fuller-tempered work , and develop (as in Nagamori's Eishō ). Founder-period Tomoyuki work is recognized by angular spaced at wide intervals, an overall subdued () impression, strong with , and a manner the liken to Sue- and the group; the school as a whole shows -leaning , Yamato-tinged and , and at its summit, in Shizunori, work judged to take Kuniyuki as its model. Branch and period read off the signature prefix and the shape: deep curvature with an arched, upturned profile through mid-, then broader blades with shallower and an extended in the later phase. A recurrent point is the hard "leaf-like" within the , often described as "as if pricked by the tip of a needle."
Among the smiths the single out Nagamori as the most accomplished of the Heike-Takada, a specialist with notably good and skilled , his name carried across several generations and dated freely in the Eishō and Daiei eras; one of his blades was bestowed by Shimazu Tsugutoyo of Kagoshima on the retainer Honda Chikaaki, and Tatemori is rated near him. The line reached into early through Kunifusa, a disciple of Shizumasa of Takada who moved to Uwajima in Iyo, served Date Hidemune, and worked in a manner. Provenance runs through the descriptions: Masayuki's was transmitted in the Shōnai Sakai family with a Kōchū of Kyōhō 6 and recorded in the Kōzan and , and Nagamori's survives with a and scabbard. The cutting-oriented robustness of the work, weighty in hand with thick and a sturdy build, reflects the taste of an age of warfare, and these blades served as practical arms across Kyushu. The are candid that Takada has drawn a generally low evaluation in the field, and several of the registered pieces are framed expressly as answering that judgment, restoring the standing of a long lineage on the strength of its best surviving work.