Kanenori of signed his with the six characters no ju Kanenori, cut with a fine chisel beside the toward the . One of his blades, designated at the 53rd session, carries on the the date "a day in the third month of Keicho 5" (1600), and the published sources cite a further work dated the eighth month of Keicho 12 (1607). From these dates, they write, his period of activity is largely clear. The earliest papers on his work set him within a group: from around the end of Tensho into the beginning of Keicho, several smiths appear to have signed no ju Kanenori or no Kanenori, each with slight differences in the characters of the signature, and each blade is read as the work of one of them.
The published sources treat his origin as a matter of course: these smiths came from Seki in and took the same name. The later papers argue it from the blades themselves. Few of his works survive, but taken together their construction, the workmanship of the and , and the taka-no- file marks show the strong colour of late work. With the name Kanenori, this leads to the conjecture that he was one of the smiths who moved from Seki in to . The papers give him no generation number and name no individual master as his teacher.
The Keicho 5 is the benchmark. It is notably wide, with little difference in width between base and tip, a thick , rather deep with , and an . The is mixed with and slightly flowing grain, tending to stand, with thick , and a -like effect. The is broadly tempered in round-headed , , and pointed elements, with and some . It is accompanied by , with , , small and frequent , and the tends to be subdued. The is deeply tempered in , turning back in on the and nearly on the . with rounded ends run on both faces over incised Sanskrit characters, with on the and a on the . The paper calls it a superior work by the rarely encountered Kanenori and finds its Keicho date exceptionally valuable as material for studying the smith.
A designated at the 44th session is dated by comparison with that blade. It has a wide but compact build, a thin , the pared down so that the stands high, deep and an extended . Its flows strongly on the into a -like texture. Round-headed run in a connected, compound () arrangement with and pointed elements, small and a subdued , and the takes a -like shape with at the tip. Because the Keicho 5 resembles it in the upper blade, the finish of the tang and even the manner of the signature, the published sources appraise it as a work of the Keicho era, and they say it presents precisely the working range of late work. A of the 60th session, 66.65 cm long with a of 7.1 cm, has a -based of round-headed that turns to clustered in places, and the paper calls it an excellent piece among his few works.
The two earliest papers, from the 18th and 23rd sessions, read the descent in the build and in the company the blades keep. One , with an and a arranged in a compound pattern, is judged close to the work of Iga no Kami Kinmichi and of Daido. Its tang, unusually, is filed in reverse on the and on the . The other has a thin and a somewhat low that give it a strong colour, and its file marks are taka-no-. The published sources liken its manner to that of Kinmichi, who likewise came out of and moved to Kyoto, and to the group, and appraise it as a work of about the beginning of Keicho.
Five signed no ju Kanenori have been designated , at sessions from the 18th in 1969 to the 60th in 2014. No provenance is recorded for any of them. The published sources stress that his surviving works are few, and they value the dated Keicho 5 blade above all for what it fixes. It anchors his period and serves as the standard against which the undated blades are matched in build, tang finish and signature. Across all five, the papers note that even after the move to he strongly retained the manner of his native province.