The first-generation Kawachi no Kami Kunisuke was among the last pupils of Kunihiro in Kyoto. After Kunihiro died in Keichō 19 he moved to Ōsaka with the elder Kunisada, Izumi no Kami, and the two became pioneers of the Ōsaka smiths, with a lasting influence on the swordmaking of the city. The published sources record that he came from Kanbe in Province and drew on the stream of the Ishidō smiths. They also judge, from the style of his early work and the cut of his signature, that his teacher in practice was the senior fellow-disciple Echigo no Kami Kunitomo rather than Kunihiro himself. His title of Kawachi no Kami is placed around Genna 9, close to the elder Kunisada's, because a and a signed Kawachi no Kami and dated Kan'ei 3 survive, together with undated works of still earlier style. That Kan'ei 3 date is his earliest, and tradition gives his death as Shōhō 4.
His Ishidō descent is the key to his hand. Within the group, the sources write, he was the one who "most excelled at ", so that some trace of clove pattern surfaces somewhere within his irregular temper; one later paper puts it as " mixes into the temper more than in anyone else of the school". The sources treat that trace as the very point by which a blade is appraised as Kunisuke rather than another hand.
His recognized manner opens from a straight above the . Above it the temper widens into mixed with , and pointed elements, with entering, well adhered, and and running through. The is a tightly packed or with thick and . The is a , often swept with . His work is extremely close to the elder Kunisada's, and the sources name the differences: against Kunisada "his hardened area is broader and his conspicuous", his broadens gradually as it rises, and his is tempered deep. A showing all of these is read as "the manner in which he most excelled".
A second register shows the schooling plainly. On one the stands and turns , the temper is a -laden with , and the sources call it a work of "strongly coloring". Other blades are read against particular masters: one carries "a Seki coloring", which the sources tie to Kunitomo; another recalls Kunitomo's own temper; others recall the elder Kunisada. Carving is rare in his work, and the few carved blades, with , goma-bashi and a relief , are noted as such.
The sources keep a careful line between him and his son, the second-generation Kawachi no Kami known as Naka-Kawachi, who carried the name and turned wholly to the Ishidō . One early paper reads a 's conspicuous as the forerunner of the son's style. A blade dated Kan'ei 19 is debated: either his own late work, or an early work of the second generation made before Shōhō 4.
Fujishiro rates him Jō-jō . Thirty-two of his blades stand in the rank, with one in the prewar and one in the Imperial Collection. The published sources call his finest signed "one of the most outstanding among his works" and others "his typical work", and they value a dated Kan'ei 3 because "its Kan'ei 3 date is also valuable reference material". Provenance, where recorded, includes the Itakura family and the Imperial Family. His surviving work is comparatively small, and are scarce, so a signed example of the first generation comes to market only from time to time.