Hida no Kami Fujiwara Ujifusa was the son of Wakasa no Kami Ujifusa, born at Seki in and first called Kawamura Isechiyo, later Heijuro. Most of the published sources give his birth as Eiroku 10, though one entry places it in Tenbun 10. They follow his career closely. He served Oda Nobutaka as a page and became a ronin after his lord's death, then served under Sakuma Masakatsu in Owari, moved to Kiyosu and began forging from about Tensho 17. In Tensho 19, when the Kampaku Toyotomi Hidetsugu became lord of Kiyosu, Ujifusa, Masatsune and Nobutaka were received at Jurakudai and each presented a sword, and Ujifusa was granted the title Hida no Kami. About Keicho 15 or 16 he moved to Nagoya and served Tokugawa Yoshinao as a retained smith, then passed the headship to no Kami Ujifusa in Kan'ei 8 and died that year at sixty-five. Three generations bore the name, the first Hida no Kami, the second no Kami and the third again Hida no Kami, and this code is the first.
His characteristic hand is a broad, generous . On a wide-bodied with shallow and a large , the shape the published sources call "the typical of Keicho ", he tempers an as the main tone, mixing and small , with and entering and well attached, and patches of mura- and along the line. The same broad manner runs across his and his . Of one such the sources write that it "fully and without reserve displays this smith's forte". On a dated Keicho 11 the same open mixed with is named a typical work.
The of that broad work is most often a standing one: an that tends to rise, at times a large or a coarse , mixed with and flowing toward along the , with . His finest , however, are forged differently. Two of them show a well-packed with , and over it a or small mixed with and pointed teeth. The published sources call one the white eyebrow of his work, the piece that "most clearly shows the style" of his native , and the other an excellent work that shows the same manner. The over his blades is tempered deep, turning in to a or with a long return and . On his and several other blades it rises instead in to a pointed tip, the of the manner.
Within the one hand the published sources draw out two further faces. The first is his most numerous, the wide, shallow-curved, large-pointed body that recalls a greatly shortened blade, though the judges point to the that fixes it as Keicho work. Among such pieces, they note, some look at first sight like the work of Muramasa. The second is rare, and the sources twice call it unusual for him: a worked with small , abundant , and fine activity over a well-forged , the deep and pointed. On these blades the judges read a private aspiration to the great masters, naming Go and , and find "an archaic flavour as though he had privately studied the superior smiths". A Keicho 7 with the recalls Yasutsugu at first sight, yet its larger and stronger, uneven are read as Ujifusa's own.
What sets him apart is the combination the judges keep returning to. He is a Seki smith by descent, and the standing, flowing with along the , the pointed and the manner of his best all carry that root. The wide, powerful Keicho- body, the deep and the reach toward in his work mark the Owari smith who served the Tokugawa. Carving is uncommon on his blades beyond the of the and the of the , and the sources call it unusual when one blade carries an inscription with Daruma carved in relief.
For the collector he is a well-documented founder rather than a rarity of legend. Fujishiro grades him Jo . He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties. His record runs through the tier, where sixteen of his works are held, all signed, among them , , a and of the first generation. Several bear Keicho-era dates that the published sources prize as "good material for the study of Hida no Kami Ujifusa", and they note that signatures with Fujiwara Ason are uncommon. Provenance for his work is little recorded, so it is best described simply as held in private hands. A signed first-generation Ujifusa, broad and vigorous with its long signature, comes to market only from time to time, and a dated example is the one a student of Owari would most wish to encounter.