Goto Koran was born in Kyoto in Bunka 3 (1806), the third son of Goto Jujo (重乗), fourth head of the Shichiroemon house, a cadet branch of the Goto family. His elder brothers were Mitsuhiro and the celebrated Ichijo. He succeeded his father as the fifth head of the Shichiroemon house, was raised in later years to the honorary rank of Hokkyo, and died on the seventeenth day of the twelfth month of Meiji 1 (1868) at the age of sixty-three. The published sources also record that he is the same man as Kyujo, the name under which a small number of his works are signed. His son Kohei later took the name Konori and succeeded as the seventeenth head of the main Goto house; as the puts it, unable to resist the currents of the age, the main Goto line of metalworkers came to its close with this Tenjo Konori.
The published sources describe his manner in one recurring sentence: it resembles that of his elder brother Ichijo. They then add, on three of his four designated works, that he carries it further toward fineness. Of a pair of they write that the manner recalls Ichijo yet is finished still more minutely, and that "such minute fine-work is Koran's forte". Of a set of fittings with flowers and auspicious birds they write that it resembles Ichijo but is finished with a still more delicate sensibility. The comparison with his brother is therefore the frame in which the reads him, and finer detail is the point on which it sets him apart.
His material is the orthodox one of the Goto house. , and are of with , carved in and finished with gold and silver ; on the reed-and-crane the relief is set off with inlay. On the he works in : in solid gold on the flower-and-bird set, in with placed gold and on a three-piece set, and in alone, with inlay, on a set where two guardian lion-dogs with open mouths are rendered with restraint. The 's praise of the colour work is specific. On the three-piece set it notes that the balance of gold and silver against the black is well judged and striking, and on the earliest dated set that he draws on many colour metals to heighten the effect of the colouring.
His four designated works span a range of subjects. A full set of fittings carved in Koka 5 (1848), its inscribed 弘化戊申彫之, shows on the the plain of Kasugano near the Kasuga Shrine in Nara, a favoured subject since old times, and on the the cherry and maple beauty spots of Mount Yoshino and the Tatsuta River; the published sources find the composition skilful and the carving, which recalls Ichijo, of a high technical order. The carry the same reed-and-crane design on both swords, yet the position of a beak shifts slightly between them, and the space of the composition is well used. The flower-and-bird set pairs a flower thought to be of the mallow family with a phoenix, a gorgeous result; the calls it "a work that conveys a high degree of completion in everything from its composition to its carving". Its is not his work but an unsigned black-lacquered leather guard with gold and silver by a lacquer artist.
The fourth work is the one that documents his second name. It is a in rusu-moyo, a hidden design that suggests Daikokuten, the god of abundance, through a daikon radish and a rat rather than by showing the god himself. The is signed Goto Koran with his , but the reads 後藤法橋久乗 with a , and the carry a split signature Goto Kyujo. The published sources state plainly that Kyujo is the same man as Koran, and they call the set "a valuable through which to know Koran's ability". They add that the rare Kyujo signature is itself unusual, so that the set is, together with its workmanship, a valuable document. Elsewhere he signs Goto Koran with a , and on the and of the matched sets a split signature in the house manner.
Koran's record is four works designated , two full sets of fittings, a three-piece set and a pair of ; he has no , no Important Cultural Properties and no National Treasures. No current holder and no old provenance are recorded against them. With so few designated pieces, a signed Koran set reaches a collector only rarely, and the one signed Kyujo, which the singles out for that rarity, is rarer still. What the published record values in him is consistent across all four: the Goto house idiom of his brother Ichijo, carried in and gold, and finished with the minute, delicate care that it names as his own forte.