A dated to the second month of Bunmei 16 (1484), signed in a large long no ju Ukyo-no- Katsumitsu and carved on both faces with the prayer-texts Tenka-taihei kokudo-an'on and Fuki-manpuku -ryo-mansoku, stands as the recognized height of this smith's hand and is the one of his works to reach the rank. Its maker is the principal bearer of a crowded name. Katsumitsu is one of the representative names of the late- forges collectively called , a name carried by more than a dozen smiths from the middle of the period onward. The published sources single out those who cut a personal name above the , chief among them Ukyo-no- Katsumitsu and his son Jirozaemon-no-jo Katsumitsu, and they place Ukyo-no- ahead of his son in seniority, the elder brother of Sakyo-no- Munemitsu and counted among the most skilled of the makers (右京亮と銘するものは次郎左衛門尉よりは先輩であり) and (末備前中でも技術が優れている).
The characteristic hand is a high, bright temper built on the open-waisted that is the diagnostic line. Over a of mixed with , well packed and in places flowing, with attaching and entering, the smith sets a into which he mixes , and , and entering well, the work -prevailing with , and small interspersed, the clear and bright. What the published sources name as his individuality is a matter of degree within that shared idiom: he is particularly adept at a more flamboyant workmanship in which abundant are intermingled within the (乱れの中に丁子を多く交えた一段と華やかな出来を得意としている), with the more conspicuous than on his fellows. On the the temper is read as the typical work of Katsumitsu among the makers (末備前の作中勝光の典型的な作風を示している), the bright, varied a superior achievement of his hand.
The is the constant beneath that flamboyance. It is the to of late , attaching, entering, on the finest pieces the fine as dust, in places a little standing or flowing. A rises clearly on this steel, and the sources note that on his blades it stands more vivid than on comparable contemporary , the temper conspicuous in its and rich in variation. The answers the , running to a or a pointed tendency, with a turnback. Across both faces lie the devotional carvings of , a finished in with beneath, a , , and shrine names such as , which the sources are careful to call the work of the school's specialist horimonoshi rather than the smith's own hand. The shape is the canonical late- , the body broad with added, the on the thicker side, the tang short and made for one-handed use.
Katsumitsu is, above all, the great collaborator of the house, and his record is largely one of joint work. With his younger brother Sakyo-no- Munemitsu he cut blades signing the two names together across two columns, dated through the Bunmei era, and several of these were forged away from , at Kusakabe in and at Kojima in , the sources reading the Kojima pieces as valuable material for tracing the smiths' movements. On these joint blades the temper runs a small with and small , or mixed into gunome, running, the tight with , the to a small round. The two are held in high regard precisely because both hands are skilled, so that collectors prize the joint work most highly (両工とも技術が優れており), (愛刀家の最も珍重するところである). One of Bunmei 16 adds a third hand, Hikobei-no-jo Tadamitsu, in a three-way collaboration the sources say they have scarcely seen elsewhere (忠光を加えた合作刀は他に殆んど見たことがない), its -toned temper carrying with and , and .
Within his own school what sets Katsumitsu apart is the reach of his hand rather than a single tell. Orthogonal to the flamboyant is a deliberately calm register the sources read as a mark of true skill. The dated Encho 2 of his son Jirozaemon-no-jo Katsumitsu tempers a with and entering well, thick, breaking in places into the , with , and , and the sources observe that although his range is the open-waisted and conspicuous of flamboyant , he is adept at of this kind as well, his works many and his collaborations with the other smiths frequent (作例が多く、末備前諸工との合作もまま見る). A Bunmei 11 , wide for its length with a thick and a strong , tempers a with a feeling over a well-packed in which a rises, thick, and fine, the clear and bright, the straight into a small round with a long turnback, which the sources align with the line of Tadamitsu (忠光に相通じる作域). His bright, -mixed and his command of a clear mark the upper edge of late- workmanship.
Katsumitsu was a productive smith and signed and dated work survives in fair number, yet little of it can ever change hands. Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo . He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record on the official rolls runs through one and nine blades, the eleven designated works on record all bearing his signature and a date. The single piece raised to is the Bunmei 16 with the rare prayer-text inscriptions, called a rare work of unusually healthy bearing and the smith's superior achievement (勝光の出色の出来栄えを示した秀逸な一口である); those incised prayer-texts are noted as without parallel, evidently made to special order and later imitated. The patrimony continues in long-held collections grounded in the blades' own provenance, with one preserved in the Imperial collection and a dated Bunmei 11 in its mounting descending in the Okubo family. Beyond these, of the works on record only the small number in the and tiers can be encountered, so a signed Katsumitsu reaches the market only from time to time, and a dated, devotionally carved example of his bright -mixed is a rewarding thing for a collector of late to come upon.