Yoshimichi is the most celebrated name of the school, the Kyoto-rooted line founded by a son of Kanemichi of Seki. The first-generation Tanba no Kami Yoshimichi and his brothers Iga no Kami Kinmichi and no Kami Masatoshi are named together in the published sources as masters of the lineage, the three smiths who carried work to the front rank of the early period. This record gathers the Osaka branch of that name. At its center stands the Osaka Tanba no Kami Yoshimichi, born in Keicho 3 and styled 'emon, the second son of the Kyoto who moved to Osaka and became the founder of the Osaka-Tanba line. A the published record assigns to a second-generation Yoshimichi, whose paper opens on the Kyoto 's biography, is recorded under the Kyoto second generation. Where the elder Kinmichi and the younger Masatoshi worked diversely, Yoshimichi held to one signature manner, and it is that manner the school is remembered by.
That manner is the , the bamboo-blind temper. Layered and are drawn through a and until the temper stripes into parallel bands like the slats of a hanging reed blind, and the published sources call it the school's hallmark, the Osaka-Tanba line handling it more often and more skilfully than any other style. On a wide, slightly elongated, thick- of Keicho- shape, the opens the temper with a long straight at the and then widens the above it, building over a base mixed with into a flamboyant large . Long, vigorous run through it, the layers in double and triple bands until it stripes into the , enter, strong gathers and clumps unevenly, long appear in places, and and are added. The rises shallow and pointed in a , swept with frequent into a flame shape and run down long. The published sources read the whole as bolder and more flamboyant than usual, of his hallmark style yet with "something that calls to mind the Kyoto Tanba no Kami Yoshimichi".
The carries the temper. On the 's the is a compact mixed with , the adhering thickly and exceedingly fine, fine entering well, the flowing and standing a little in places. The itself is a study of its own. The published sources distinguish the 's straight from the broadening Osaka , noting that here the keeps an even width as it rises rather than spreading toward the upper blade, a point of recognition within the Osaka-Tanba hand. The temper is the constant; the build and the strength of the vary.
The name is read by hand and by signature rather than by a single dated chronology. The Osaka Tanba is the prime hand.
Within the school the line is best placed by its own signature. Of the the sources write that the line "excelled above all in the , the house specialty", and the 's straight, even and pointed, flame-swept distinguish his hand from the broadening Osaka of his neighbours. Against the Kyoto he is most easily confused and most carefully separated: because the Osaka line cut no chrysanthemum crest while the Kyoto line did from the second generation on, the published sources give the character 守 of the signature as the decisive point, its 寸 element cut straight down on Osaka work and slanting on Kyoto work. The sources are honest about the line's later course, observing that "as the generations descended" the manner grew more technical and more uniform, the temper settling toward a single pattern as the individuality of the founders thinned.
The Osaka is rated Jō by Fujishiro, and two blades on this record stand in the tier and two more in the Imperial collection, none in a higher grade. Provenance is sparse but includes the Imperial collection, the kind of patrimony that is preserved rather than traded. There are no National Treasures or Important Cultural Properties here, and the holdings are few, so a designated Osaka-Tanba Yoshimichi does not appear often. When one does, it is most often a of the Keichō- build, and it reaches a private collection only from time to time. For a name carried by several generations under one signature, each surviving designated work is a documented point on the line, and the on a sound blade remains the surest mark by which this Osaka branch of the school is known.