Morikage worked at in through the height of the period, cutting long, dated signatures such as Bishū Morikage on , and across the , , Eiwa and Kakei years. He is the central figure of the group, a line traced in the published sources to the remote ancestor Kunimori, who is said to have moved to from Inokuma in Yamashiro Province in the period. Works by the early smiths Kunimori and Sukemori are extremely rare, and within the group it is Morikage who left by far the largest body of work and the highest reputation. The 's published commentary states it plainly, that among the smiths of the line in this period "Morikage left the largest number of works and is also the most skilled". His Fujishiro grade is Jō-jō .
His characteristic hand is a temper built not on the clove-flower of mainstream but on a base. Into that undulating line he sets , angular elements and a pointed tendency, with and entering well, adhering, and fine and running through the . The published sources read the temper as distinctly his own. On a converted- of rank they note that the does not become broadly undulating in the manner of Kanemitsu but keeps short foothills and somewhat angular crests, features that, they say, clearly articulate Morikage's individual character. A quiet tell recurs across his work: the tends to a subdued rather than the bright, showy temper of the leading names of his day.
The is the constant beneath that range. Over a standing mixed with , the grain often opening, he lays a fine , entering finely, patches of in the steel, and a that stands on his signed and unsigned blades alike. The strength of the in both and is what the judges call the mark of in his work. The runs , finishing in a pointed or small-round turnback with , and the carvings range from a plain through to and a on the finest pieces.
What the published sources stress above all is the breadth of his range. They describe it as wide, encompassing work in which predominates, a florid and changeful with and mixed in, work centred on angular , and even a in an manner. The dated, signed pieces are the spine of this picture, since they fix his hand to specific years from the era onward, while the register stands at its quiet extreme. Of one signed of Eiwa 2 the commentary remarks that, at a glance, it presents "exactly the kind of manner that calls and the Unrui smiths to mind", holding it among the very best of his output and a blade that makes his diversity readily understood. A modern scholarly question hangs over the name itself: on shared workmanship and the reverse-chisel forms of his signature characters, the published sources record a theory, now widely entertained, that this long-signature Morikage may belong instead to an collateral line connected to Chikakage and Yoshikage, and that the smiths who cut bold, large two-character signatures may be the true hands. The matter is left open for further study.
The larger face of his surviving record is the attributed to him. These are wide-bodied, the shallow and the extended in the archetypal shape, the a mixed with and at times small . The published sources affirm them as unmistakable , then place Morikage by contrast: his bright and subdued, -mixed temper hold him apart from Kanemitsu, whose temper is broader, and from the box-shaped large of the Chōgi group. Yet the kinship to Chōgi is real and acknowledged. The commentary on one , noting how the line tends to be overshadowed by Kanemitsu and Chōgi, says outright that "his workmanship resembles Chōgi and stands beside it". He belongs, in short, to the front rank of , a maker whose attribution rests on era, school and these careful distinctions rather than on a single flamboyant trait.
For the collector Morikage is an attainable name among the great hands, though one to be met with patience. He has no National Treasures; his designated record runs instead through two Important Cultural Properties, three and a long roll, ninety blades in the and tiers in all, with one further from the prewar designations. His provenance is that of the houses, his blades carried in the Nabeshima of , the Uesugi, the Date and the Hisamatsu-Matsudaira, with one piece recorded in Imperial keeping. The published commentary singles out individual works in the strongest terms, calling one converted "an outstanding example among his works of that form". Because most designated blades stay in long-held collections, a signed and dated Morikage comes to light only from time to time, and a privately held one is a notable thing for a collector to encounter, a securely documented witness to the broad and skilled hand at the centre of the school.
