A long carrying the gold-inlaid ownership inscription of Kan Shinbei and a two-body cutting test made by Yomogita Yasudayu on the sixteenth day of the twelfth month of 11 (1671) is, in the words of the published sources, one of the representative works of the second-generation Yamashiro no Kami Kunikane of Oshu Sendai. He was the eldest son of the founder, Yamashiro Daijo Kunikane, and was called Hongo Kichiemon. Born in Keicho 17 (1612), he succeeded to the house in Shoho 2 (1645) at thirty-four and served the Date house as his father had. He received the title Yamashiro no Kami on the twelfth day of the eleventh month of 7 (1667), three years after his father's death, and died on the second day of the seventh month of 12 (1672) at sixty-one.
The published sources say his style followed the founder's entirely and kept from first to last to the Hosho manner, the forging of the Yamato Hosho school from which the family claimed descent. He was skilled at and only occasionally tempered a . Every blade on record under his name is forged in and tempered in . The runs well with laid on it, and on the finest pieces the is dust-fine and thick with fine entering. Over it he tempers a , small entering toward the , the frayed in and crossed by , tangling along the edge and fine following the grain. The runs straight and either ends in or turns into a small , sweeping into .
The published sources name his own points to watch. On a blade they call typical, a rises from below the , a habit they say is seen on the second generation as on the founder, and a faint appears in the lower half. The file is at times finished in a simple decorative pattern, which the texts also count among his features. The signature has a tell of its own: in his the horizontal strokes are all driven hard and pressed at the end, and the form of the inner part of the character 包 is a point to watch.
Beside the plain , a few blades widen the temper into a touched with and , a and patches of coarse in the activity. Of one the published sources say that for the second generation it is truly full of power and hardly inferior to the founder, and place it around 10. Another, dated 10 (1670), is called extremely carefully made and without a flaw. A signed Oshu Sendai ju Kunikane is placed before he took the Yamashiro no Kami title and is still called typical and representative.
The texts weigh him against his father in two voices. An early paper says his style is exactly his father's but his skill does not reach it; later papers call him the next most skilled after his father, his finest work approaching the founder's. They also correct the received chronology: the account that the founder retired in Shoho 2 and died at seventy-three in 4 is said probably to contain an error, and the second generation is fixed instead by his Yamashiro no Kami title in 7 and his death in 12.
Fujishiro rates him Jo . His designated record holds ten blades, all signed, most long and sturdy of the shape with a wide body and full . The founder's own work, including the pieces signed with his go Yokei, stands under the founder's name; the second generation is the Kunikane a collector is more likely to meet, a signed of and that the published sources hold up as the family's Hosho manner carried faithfully into a second generation, appearing on the market from time to time.