Ryōkai of Yamashiro Province founded the Ryōkai school, one of the offshoots of the late capital, and worked in the same years as Kunitoshi: his surviving dated blades carry the era names Shōō, Einin, Kagen and Engen. The old account makes him a son or a pupil of Kunitoshi, but the published sources note that the dated pieces place him almost level with Kunitoshi, so that he reads more naturally as a fellow disciple (aitedeshi); and if the 'two-character Kunitoshi' and Kunitoshi are taken as different men, Ryōkai would instead be the son of the two-character Kunitoshi. Either way his is the Yamashiro hand softened a degree, and the published record fixes the difference precisely, noting that with him 'the and can feel somewhat less forceful' than Kunitoshi's. He is Jō- in Fujishiro's grading, the head from whom the Ryōkai line descends.
The hand the published descriptions assign him is a quiet one. Over a packed or , often flowing toward and standing a little open, fine adheres thickly and fine enter, and a whitish stands in the . The temper is a calm chū- or , mixing here a small , or , with and entering, sometimes a Kyoto-style reverse along the edge. Its distinguishing mark is the : it tightens and grows austere, and in places clouds into , that moist, soft quality the published sources name again and again as a Ryōkai point. The judges set the contrast with the parent exactly, writing that compared with Kunitoshi 'the is one degree tighter and the activity within the temper lonelier, breaking in places into '. The closes into a , often brushed with a little .
The is where the school turns from toward Yamato. The forging carries mixed into the , the published record observing that the 'shows more tendency than in Kunitoshi' and takes on a whitish cast, and the that rises with it is the first thing that separates a Ryōkai blade from its parent: where keeps a clear, bright - or , Ryōkai stands a paler, drier . On the finest the steel shows in a piled manner with and a faint , the Kyoto refinement still legible beneath the school's drift; on the plainer the grain flows openly toward and the whitens further. Fine and run within a tight, bright , faint and fray the , and the keeps to its .
His work survives in two registers of the one manner. The signed pieces are slender and , the a boldly cut two-character Ryō- set toward the above the first ; the keep a high toward a small , the run in with a thick , the typical late- Kyoto , several carved with and on the and on the . Of one such the published sources write that, complete in every part, it is 'altogether elegant', a work that 'may well be called a representative work of Ryōkai', adding that 'the signature too is of the archetypal type'. The second register, and the bulk of the designated record, is given to him on the hand: the wa-zori and Kyoto air recall at first glance, but the tightening, sinking, clouding , the flowing and the settle the attribution to Ryōkai. A small number of collaborative dated blades signed with his son Hisanobu also survive, the work close to the father's , signed examples of the son being very rare.
The distinction the judges draw most often is the one against itself, for the school stands so close to its parent that the two are confused at sight. The published record states it plainly: Ryōkai 'is often mistaken for Kunitoshi', the attribution then settled not by any single feature but by the softer and , the in the , the whitish and the clouding line, since 'the has an quality, and the carries more than Kunitoshi'. His own grounded tells separate him from the sister school as cleanly: where turns the in a large, deep , Ryōkai closes into a small , and his clouds into the that leaves bright. Downstream the Ryōkai name ran for several generations, his son Ryō Hisanobu next, and by the and eras a Kyushu branch had formed, the Chikushi Ryōkai of Bungo and Buzen descended from the Kyoto line.
Ryōkai is a smith of real standing whose designated work can still be encountered, though sparingly. Of his blades on the official record, five are Important Cultural Properties, among them the famed Akita Ryōkai ; four are and eighty-eight , ninety-two across the Tokujū and tiers. The Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, held and studied rather than traded, and most of the designated blades, signed or attributed, are kept in long-held public and private collections, among them the Tokyo National Museum, the Sano Art Museum and Monobe Jinja, with prewar pieces recorded against the Maeda and other houses. One preserves a tradition that it was 'a sword worn by Miyamoto ', and his blades pass through the Isahaya, Date and Maeda families. Of the works whose whereabouts are recorded, only the and tier reaches the market, and then rarely; a signed Ryōkai or in particular is among the scarcer things a collector of Kyoto work will meet, coming to hand only with patience.