A somewhat slender, -zori signed Fujishima Tomoshige, designated at the fifty-first , carries the school in miniature: an that runs to and stands a little open, the steel taking on a dark cast with prominent , over which the lower half tempers with pointed and angular teeth while the upper half holds to . The dark steel and the angular and pointed elements of that lower , the published sources write, are the features through which this smith's character can be discerned. Tomoshige is the representative smith of the Fujishima school of Fujishima in province, a name carried by several generations from the end of through ; the published sources treat it as a school-level attribution, reading each blade against a fixed school character rather than ordering one hand's career. The first generation comes down in the old books as a pupil of Kunitoshi of Yamashiro, but the earliest dated extant works are from the Oei era, and the finds no work older than , judging from the make and the tang finish that the line draws rather on the Yamato tradition, close to the Yamato Shikkake hand. The blades grouped under this name fall at its early end, several read as somewhat older than the Oei-dated reference pieces.
The recognition lives in the . Tomoshige forges an that mixes in and runs to , standing somewhat open, the surface gathering and , and the steel carries a distinct blackish tone. The published sources name exactly this as one of the school's chief points, that the tends toward and shows a dark cast (地鉄が肌立ちごころで黒みを帯びるのが一つの見どころ), the mark of work from the northern provinces. Over that he tempers a into which box-shaped and pointed teeth enter together with and , the feel of it described as a make in which -style character and -style elements coexist (備前気質と美濃風が混在した感のある乱れ刃). The enter rather long, the is -laden with sweeping it and entering, and a -like activity gathering at the lower temper, and the runs pointed or into a , on the often swept with or running to a . It is the conjunction that names him, a Yamato-rooted dark steel beneath an active temper that borrows from two other traditions.
The repays the closer look, because it is where the school and the man are read together. The stands and flows rather than tightening into the fine of a Yamashiro blade, and on one magari- it runs plainly to a -leaning , the most openly Yamato of his . The dark color is a property of the steel itself, not of the polish, and the published sources tie it to the northern provinces outright, writing of one that the blackish tone is characteristic of blades from the Hokuriku region (北国特有の黒味). On the longer blades a faint whitish rises in the , the quiet reflection of northern steel rather than a bright one. The answers the with its own mix: the angular and box-shaped teeth are the active, -and- face of a school whose is Yamato, the long, the sitting now in and now -dominant, the activity constant without becoming showy.
Within this one manner the published sources set the short blades apart. On the the school hand quiets: the runs with the grain flowing at the edge, thick and the dark steel, the temper dropping to a narrow or a low and mix with , the here and there clouding to , and and fraying the , the a that on one piece turns pointed and returns deeply. Many Fujishima works, the published record notes, temper a mixed with , yet among the one not infrequently encounters a fine with , and these are where the Yamato base shows most simply even as the dark steel keeps its northern mark. The name is almost always signed, four of the five designated blades on an , the four-character Fujishima Tomoshige most common with a two-character Tomoshige beside it. On one the two Fujishima characters closely resemble those on the Oei-dated pieces but the single character Shige differs, and the published sources read its make and together so that it is not impossible to consider it a work by Tomoshige dating back prior to the Oei era (応永をさかのぼる友重の作と考えられないでもない), placing it among the oldest of the name.
What sets Tomoshige apart from the schools his work otherwise recalls is held in his own traits rather than borrowed from theirs. His resembles a make in its and its long , but the box-shaped and pointed teeth, the standing dark and the constant pull it away from a clean , while the -leaning keeps it short of a true Yamashiro or pure Yamato blade. The teacher question is settled by elimination toward Yamato, the line bound neither to Kunitoshi in style nor secured to any earlier hand by date, and the holds plainly that no surviving work goes back earlier than the period (南北朝期を遡るものはみない). He stands at the head of the Hokurikudo Fujishima manner, in feel to the and smiths of the region, and the name continues for generations on the fixed character of dark standing and box-and-pointed , the later work the most often surviving.
Five of his blades stand in the tier and Fujishiro places him among the middle ranks of the smiths. The fifty-first- is singled out as one of the relatively few extant examples of a by this smith (同作中の数少ない太刀の遺例), its dense carvings on both faces strengthening a blade whose and are judged sound and superior, and whose make the published sources read as calm and somewhat archaic in taste (総じて穏やかで古調な感), dated late to around Oei. A second , magari- yet still well-curved, is praised for a -prominent and a of good quality. Provenance is not recorded among these blades, and the honest reading is a smith held in long-standing private hands rather than in named museums. Tomoshige is not among the unattainable names: his designated swords, most of them , come to the serious collector from time to time, a realistic if uncommon encounter for the patient, valued less for rarity than for the way a single dark-steeled blade carries the whole northern school in its .