Hosokawa Masayoshi is the second smith to bear the name, the son of Hosokawa Yoshisuke of Shimotsuke who signed Masayoshi before him, and he is the hand the published sources mean when they speak of Masayoshi of the Suishinshi Masahide school. He entered the forge of Suishinshi Masahide, the reviver of the old traditions, signed first Masakata and then Morihide, and only afterward took the Masayoshi name; he became a retained smith of the Matsudaira house of the Tsuyama domain in Mimasaka, signing himself a lower vassal of Sakuyo, and worked for most of his life in . He died on the sixth day of the sixth month of Ansei 5, at the age of seventy-three. The published record places him high in the bakumatsu hierarchy of the Masahide school: it calls him the effective successor within that school, names him a twin pillar with Naotane, and says without hedging that he surpassed his own father.
His work divides into a - and a -, and the published sources are unusually direct about the difference between them. The - is far the superior, holding his masterpieces, while his -, a -laden , leaves nothing that truly commands admiration. The - is the manner by which he is known, and it is the spine of his designated record. Over a that forges tightly he tempers a , the long entering vigorously and mingling through it, the deep with well adhering, the running in with and ending in . He tempers this skillfully rather than mechanically, and on his finest blades the crowds and gathers into , and until the temper heads press together, a showy massing the published sources record in the words of the Shuroku, that his heaps up like double-cherry blossoms on the branch.
The is the controlled, refined steel over which that flamboyant temper is set. The published sources describe a forging tightly, with , and on his best blades fine gathering thickly with ko- entering well, the surface at times becoming almost . It is a deliberately quiet, well-knit steel, far from the standing of old , and the restraint of the throws the activity of the into relief. The published sources are careful to qualify the temper itself: his - is not a complete in the old manner but, like the - of other smiths, carries . The reflection of old is not part of his record; his is a revival worked in and together rather than a copy of the original. Across the edge run long and fine , and on his broadest blades the temper widens further, the opening left and right within the in a way the judges read as the hand-habit of this smith.
The richest of his recorded blades are the late, broad and long pieces with large . A of Kaei 4 carries an added inscription naming it the Choju-, the sword of long life; a second, of Ansei 2, bears his age of seventy-two carved on the tang together with the name of the man who ordered it. On both the temper is at its most crowded, the massing until the heads abut, with long , , deep and , the with . The published sources call these his representative - work, robust and handsome despite their great length, and they note that even at such size the and betray no break. Against this stands the half of his output the judges set explicitly below it, the - ; the record names it without illustrating a masterpiece in it, and the contrast is itself part of how he is read. His finest blades are -like in shape, the and alike accomplished, and they are the ones the published sources call his work of full satisfaction.
What sets him apart within the Masahide school is the particular character of that -. His teacher's program was the revival of every old tradition; Masayoshi made the his own and carried it further than most of his contemporaries, while his nearest peer in standing, Naotane, ranged more widely across the manners. The published sources keep the comparison to Naotane at the level of rank, twin pillars of the school, rather than of style, and they reserve their stylistic praise for his . The angular heads, the way the temper heads press together, and the opening are named as his own tells, not borrowed from any single old model, and it is on these that a Hosokawa Masayoshi is recognized rather than on the broad outline of - that he shares with the whole revival.
Five of his blades carry the designation, four of them signed with the long signature and the carved seal he habitually used, the body of his known record. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties, as befits a bakumatsu smith whose work is recent; his standing rests on the quality of the - rather than on age or provenance, and no or temple descent is recorded for these blades. They are held, for the most part, in private hands, with one tang preserving the name of an -period patron and another the Choju- title. For a collector this places him among the more attainable of the front-rank names: his designated blades survive in small numbers and come to the market only from time to time, a substantial being a landmark when one appears, but not beyond the reach of a serious collection in the way a masterpiece is. What he offers is the late- - at close to its height, a deep- that the published sources judged the equal of his task and a manner they were content to set beside the best of his school.