Kunitomo is a smith of the early period and, by the published account, the senior figure of his house. lay on the highway running from Kyoto toward Ōmi, where many smiths had resided since early times, and Kunitomo is transmitted as the eldest of the six brothers who made the school's name: the published sources record that "Kunitomo was the eldest of the six brothers of the famed signed smiths, and is said to have styled himself Tōbayashi Saemon". His younger brothers were Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo, Arikuni and Kunitsuna, and together with Hisakuni and Kuniyasu he was summoned as a , a smith in monthly attendance, to the cloister of the retired sovereign Go-Toba (Go-Toba In). The call him the eldest son of Kuniie and place him around the Jōkyū era (1219 to 1222).
His signed carry a mixed only with slight , the calm and restrained line of early , into which enter and . The lies deep with , and run through it, and here and there the line softens toward . The interest of such an edge lies in the activity within rather than in the height of the pattern. is the constant note, named on every blade described in full, three of his four, the bright lines running through his deep-, temper; the fourth, the Atsuta Jingū , is known here only from its Important Cultural Property plate, which records a .
The is the school's signature. He forges a tightly packed that on the signed takes on a -like refinement, in places mixed with flowing grain and patches of larger , with fine well adhered and the steel clear. On the prewar the record gives mixed with , and on the the close shows entering the . The answers the quiet temper. It runs straight to a , its a little subdued on the first-session blade, or straight to a -like point; on the the tip shows with . A is carved on the of the signed .
His record divides cleanly into two faces. The first is the , two-character signed , the signature finely cut on the toward the , slender with high , marked and a small , the elegant shape of the period preserved in its original tang. The Atsuta Jingū , signed Kunitomo, is a blade with , forged in and tempered in , 75.8 cm long. The second face is the appraised as his work, slender with high and a dignified form, its forging a finely worked and its temper a base with and mixed in. Securely signed examples are the heart of the scholarship around him. The published sources state plainly that "extant works securely bearing his signature are exceedingly few", and the commentary counts his reliable works as the Atsuta Jingū and the blade before it.
The yardstick the published sources reach for is the Atsuta . Of his finest signed piece they judge that "in overall workmanship as well as in the manner of the signature it is extremely close to the example at Atsuta Jingū", and they call it a work in which "the merits and elevated dignity of the early school are superbly displayed". What sets him apart is his own grounded manner: the slender, high- with a small , the tightly packed of -like refinement, and a with slight bright with and . Within his house he stands at the head of the brothers, beside Hisakuni and Kuniyasu, at the beginning of the exacting line.
The Toko Taikan places him high among rated smiths. He has no National Treasures. Four works are designated on record: the Important Cultural Property at Atsuta Jingū, two at the rank, and a prewar , of which the published commentary says it is "valuable as one of the few signed works". The Atsuta Jingū remains in the shrine as patrimony, and the is held by the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures. The two blades, the signed and the one, are the pieces of recorded whereabouts in private hands. With only two blades in the and tiers and securely signed works numbering only a handful, a signed Kunitomo comes to market only very seldom, and a privately held example is among the rarest things an early- collector could encounter.