Yoshimoto is a smith of the Fukuoka group whose readable record is small and uncommonly distinguished: three blades at the rank, including a carrying a gold-inlaid signature, and two designated Bijutsuhin before the war, one of them published in the Kozan . The Fukuoka was the school that arose in the early period with Norimune as its founder and that, by the mid-, brought the temper to its most consciously decorative maturity, mixing large , layered double-flower and frog-spawn with abundant and . The name Yoshimoto sits across two lineages in the , one strand among the Fukuoka and one among the smiths, and the published sources note that the second generation later relocated to , recording of the first that "its second generation is said to have moved to ." One tradition transmits the first generation as a son of Yoshifusa, the school's foremost master of the flamboyant .
His hand is read in two manners. The first is an archaic, somewhat subdued early- : over a slender body with high and clear , ending in a , he forges an that runs in places and tends slightly to stand, a faint rising over it. The temper is a mixed with small irregularity and , breaking the line in places, entering well throughout, adhering and running, the straight with a tendency. On the slenderer of the signed the lower half settles toward a base and a chiba-, the speckled reflection of old steel, is discerned in the . The published sources read this restrained early work as archaic in , and form alike, holding that "its workmanship and shape are archaic in character and it is appraised to the early period."
The carries his recognition as much as the temper. The forging is an , in one piece mixed with and running here and there, tending a little to stand, with attaching, and over it the rises. It is faint on the early and discerned as a chiba- on the shortened one, and it stands vividly on his mature , where a densely forged carries fine and beneath a clear reflection. The published sources call that bright in steel and well refined, writing of the that "the forging, with its vivid standing, is bright in steel color and well worked." The enters in with attaching, the fine and of his developed hand running through it, the straight or very shallowly and turning back in a small round.
His shows the school's mature manner at its developed height and supplies the second of his two registers. Greatly shortened, the body somewhat wide with little difference between base and tip width, it retains with added curvature toward the tip and a , with carved through on both sides. The temper is a mixed with and ; in the upper half it rises high and varies in height to a splendid effect, and entering well, the bright and -dominant. This is the flamboyant the school is known for, where his early keep the calmer of the old tone, so a collector reads the two pieces as one smith working at the two ends of his school's range. The attribution itself rests on a connoisseur's judgment of manner, and the published sources locate it in the temper, holding that "compared with Yoshifusa, the slightly more restrained setting of the accords convincingly with the to Yoshimoto."
That last judgment places him within the Fukuoka rather than apart from it. His own grounded tells are the bright over a well-worked , the -toned early temper and the slightly calmer that the appraisers weighed against Yoshifusa's more exuberant hand, and these set him within the school without naming a rival's features. The recognized signed work belongs to the Fukuoka Yoshimoto, distinguished from the namesake by the archaic , and form of his early- , while the 's double entry and the recorded move of the second generation carry the name forward into the rising school. The published sources resolve the homonym on a Bijutsuhin by style and signature, judging that of the two Yoshimoto smiths "this one is thought to correspond to the former," the son of Yoshifusa in the Fukuoka line.
Yoshimoto is graded Jo- by Fujishiro, and his designated record, though small, is high: a gold-inlaid and two signed at the rank, and two signed recognized as Bijutsuhin in the prewar years, five designated works on record in all. One is published in the Kozan ; the Bijutsuhin pair appears in the Taikan, the Taishu and the Shinko Meito Zufu. The blades whose owners are recorded passed through private hands, Kikuchi Takashi of Kyoto and Honma Yusuke of holding the two Bijutsuhin at the time of their designation, the early recorded with private owners in Tokyo and abroad. No National Treasure or Important Cultural Property bears his name, so his work is not held out of reach in museums and shrines but survives in long-held private collections. A signed Yoshimoto is a rare thing, the more so an - example, which the published sources prize as reference material; one reaches the market only seldom, and a piece in this archaic Fukuoka hand rewards the patience of the collector who waits for it.
