Hasebe Kuninobu was a swordsmith of Yamashiro Province active during the period, and one of the two principal representatives of the Hasebe group alongside Kunishige. The Kosei records Kuninobu as the son of the first-generation Kunishige and the younger brother of the second-generation Kunishige. The Hasebe smiths traditionally resided at Gojo Bomon Inokuma in Kyoto, though among extant works none are seen bearing the inscription "resident of Yamashiro Province" (Yamashiro no ju). Recent scholarship regards as most persuasive the view that this group's original homeland was Yamato, that it reached full development in , and that it ultimately settled in Kyoto. Contemporaneous with the smiths Hiromitsu and Akihiro, the Hasebe group developed an ostentatious manner featuring flamboyant . Together with the group, the Hasebe lineage represents one of the major currents of Yamashiro work in the period. Within the group are found smiths such as Kunishige, Kuninobu, Kunihira, Munenobu, and Shigenobu, with Kunishige and Kuninobu standing as the foremost figures. Dated works by Kuninobu are known from the Enbun and Joji eras, confirming his activity in the mid-fourteenth century.
The forging of the Hasebe group is distinguished by with a pronounced tendency, in which stands out near both the edge side and the back side and enters freely -- a characteristic rare within work. Thick adheres with appearing throughout, and the ground steel frequently exhibits -like mottling. Whereas typically constructs its fundamental tempered pattern from and , the Hasebe manner is centered on and . In Kuninobu's case specifically, the consistently identifies a characteristic tendency for the to become angular, or to take on a somewhat (arrow-nock) appearance. The constitutes another point of particular interest: its connects to the and is carried down long toward the base in , and the tip frequently shows vigorous breaking into , at times assuming a flame-like (-) character. , , and enter freely, combining with deep , thick , and forceful and to produce the brilliant for which the school is celebrated. The construction characteristically employs an extremely thin , itself a hallmark of this phase of production. Kuninobu's signatures display a habitual trait shared broadly across the Hasebe group: the five-character inscription is cut with tightened spacing between the characters, placed at the center of the tang with fine chisel work.
The 's evaluations consistently identify Kuninobu as a smith whose oeuvre encompasses two contrasting size tendencies: extremely large and imposing works exceeding one , and conversely, compact forms in the six-to-seven range. The celebrated Atsuta Kuninobu, preserved at Atsuta Jingu as an Important Cultural Property, exemplifies the former tendency at its most commanding. Signed are notably rare within his corpus, with only a small number of confirmed examples surviving. Several observe that certain works depart from the customary flamboyant , revealing instead a quieter mode of mixed with -- pieces deemed valuable for understanding the breadth of this smith's repertoire. In comparison with Kunishige, Kuninobu's tempering is noted as somewhat lower and more restrained in its base pattern, while the angular and tendency serve as reliable diagnostics for distinguishing his hand. The describes Kuninobu's finest works as displaying "compelling power and presence," with and in condition, and ranks his masterworks among those in which the distinctive features of the Hasebe group are "plainly manifested" with "especially fine workmanship."