-no-kami Fujiwara Takahira is the later name of Kashu Kanewaka, the head of the Tsujimura line of smiths, and a of his dated Genna 7 (1621) is treated by the published sources not merely as a fine blade but as documentary evidence, called 'valuable material for clarifying' the long-standing questions over his court title. The line was in origin: its forebears were Seki men who relocated north to and worked there under the name Kanewaka, the first generation styling himself Tsujimura Shiroemon-no-jo. Around Genna 5 (1619) this smith received the title -no-kami and signed Takahira thereafter, and the commonly accepted view identifies him with Kanewaka, though whether he was the first or the second generation of that name, and the exact circumstances of the title, remained matters the published commentary holds open for further research. What is not in question is the hand: forging carried into , more vigorous than its Seki parent and unmistakably his own in the box-shaped temper the published sources single out as his.
The feature that most distinguishes his work is a box-shaped, - element worked into the temper, which the published sources describe as a 'box-shaped, wet-looking temper' and name outright as what is most characteristic of him. It does not stand alone. His is a base into which and pointed enter, the box-shaped heads forming where the undulations broaden and flatten, the deep with and coarser gathering in places, running frequently through the and entering. and fall into the temper, and on the wider blades a faint frays its upper edge. The whole is a temper given weight, the pointed forms of Seki softened into the rounded box that the eye learns to read as Takahira before any other tell.
Beneath it the is that runs into a flowing , the steel standing somewhat with attaching and entering, the frequently . The flow is the origin showing through the surface, and it is nearly constant across his work, on the early pieces standing more openly and on the densest late blades tightening toward a with the falling as fine particles. The is mixed and characteristic of the line rather than uniform: it turns back in on one face while the other runs to and a pointed tip, and on some blades it enters as with a slight thrust before the turn. The carving is varied for a provincial smith, from and to an openwork and a Hachiman invocation, and on one a pair of deep relief inscriptions whose reading the published sources puzzle over.
The published record draws two periods across his career. In the early Keicho years, signing Kanewaka, he made broad, blades with extended points in the Keicho- stance, the mixed with standing more, the temper a shallow laced with and , so that the whole 'recalls the work of old ', as the sources put it. As the years fall from Genna into Kanei and the Takahira signature takes over, the proportions return toward a normal width with a wider taper and a , the tightens, the deepens, and it is in this later manner that the box- becomes prominent. He worked , and the the sources note he made from time to time, and the published sources record that he 'particularly excelled at producing works with broad and slightly elongated proportions'. His long signature, cut toward the with Tsujimura -no-kami and Fujiwara arranged in two lines and Takahira and a below, is itself a habit the sources describe, as is the curious recurrence, on several blades and for reasons unclear, of the date 'third day of the third month'.
Within the larger world of swordsmithing his is a school hand placed by lineage rather than by a famous teacher: the - manner worked in steel, the bridge by which the Seki tradition took root in the north. The resemblance the sources draw is the genuine one and belongs to his own early blades, where the broad and the -and- temper genuinely echo the old master; it is a resemblance of manner, not an attribution problem, and it sits beside his own box- rather than replacing it. His bright, deep- with its box-shaped heads and flowing set him apart from the plainer work around him, and his dated, signed blades make him one of the more exactly knowable smiths of his generation, the succession of the Kanewaka name traceable in part through the very pieces the designates.
Seven of his blades are recorded at , all signed, spanning and the in which he is most often seen, and two further signed in full as Tsujimura -no-kami Fujiwara Takahira are held by the Imperial Family, the latter among the most distinguished provenance a smith of his rank can carry. He has no National Treasure or Important Cultural Property on this record, and his Toko Taikan standing places him in the solid middle of the field rather than at its summit, which is the honest measure of him: a fine, characterful provincial master, not one of the great names. For a private collector this makes him a realistic aspiration where the first rank is not. His blades are held, as designated swords generally are, and come to market only from time to time and with patience; when one does appear, the box-shaped wet temper and the flowing declare him at a glance, and a signed, dated example of recorded whereabouts is a satisfying thing to encounter, a documented work by the smith whose own blades the reads as the key to the Kanewaka succession.
