Dewanokami Yukihiro was the second son of Hashimoto Yoshinobu and the younger brother of Kawachi no Daijo Masahiro, which made him a grandson of the first-generation Tadayoshi and placed him, from birth in Genna 3 (1617), within the great Hizen Tadayoshi house. He worked not in the main line but on its collateral, the waki-Hizen or Soba-Hizen branch, of which he became the foremost master. He received the court title Dewa Daijo in Shoho 5 (1648), was promoted to Dewanokami in Kanbun 3 (1663), and died in Tenna 2 (1682) at the age of sixty-six. A second-generation Yukihiro, his natural son, first signed Yukinaga and styled himself Tobanojo, took the Dewanokami title in Jokyo 1 (1684), and followed his father's manner so closely that on undated blades the published sources turn to the form of the characters kuni and hiro, and to the Tobanojo prefix, to tell the generations apart, often leaving the question open pending further documentation.

The manner for which Yukihiro is most known is a flamboyant choji-midare. Over the school's tightly forged ko-itame he tempers a clove pattern mixed with gunome, angular forms, round-headed gunome and yahazu-like elements, the yakihaba broad, the temper large and showy. Long ashi enter vigorously, the nioi runs deep, nie adheres thickly with coarser nie mixed in here and there, and long sunagashi with conspicuous kinsuji run through the edge. The published sources fix the tell precisely: of one of his finest katana they write that "the vertically elongated long-ashi choji is something often seen in the first-generation Yukihiro, clearly manifesting this smith's distinctive traits." It is this register that the commentary calls the midareba in which "he fully displayed his true capability," the workmanship that on his boldest pieces, the judges allow, even calls to mind his elder brother Masahiro.

The jigane is the constant beneath both his manners. It is a ko-itame forged so tightly that it becomes the Hizen komenuka-hada, the fine rice-bran surface in which ji-nie lies thickly in minute particles and fine chikei enters, the steel bright and at times tending slightly toward a blackish tone. Over that jigane the boshi runs straight into a ko-maru or o-maru, frequently with hakikake at the point and a long turnback; on his wider midare pieces a touch of muneyaki and yubashiri-like tobiyaki gathers near the monouchi. The nioiguchi stays bright and clear across his record, the bright temper over the refined komenuka steel being the Hizen hallmark he carries whether the edge is wild or calm.

Alongside the showy clove pattern Yukihiro commanded the school's traditional straight temper, and a clear register of his record is a chu- or hiro-suguha. Over the same komenuka jigane he sets a suguha-toned line, mixing small gunome or, near the base, an angular notare suggestive of koshiba, with ko-ashi and yo entering, deep nioi, thickly adhering ko-nie, and fine sunagashi and kinsuji. Of one wide-suguha katana the published sources say its appearance could be mistaken for the straight temper of the main Hizen line, "a finish that could be confused with the main house's suguha," calling it a comparatively uncommon suguha example that shows his high technical level. A dedicatory naginata offered to Ise Jingu carries the same clean suguha, the nioiguchi bright and notably clear. Orthogonal to all this runs a strand peculiar to the founder, the Aranda-kitae or Dutch forging he is said to have learned at Nagasaki in Keian 3 (1650) under the Dutch smith Hisatsugu and one Yakushiji Tanenaga, in essence a method of working nanban-tetsu, imported steel; many of his blades carry the supplementary inscription i-Aranda-kitae tsukuru kore, and the dated examples among them the commentary prizes as valuable source material. He customarily cut the single character ichi on the tang, and rarely the full Hizen Ichimonji, an idiom of his own that is not to be confused with the medieval Bizen Ichimonji school.

What sets Yukihiro apart within his own tradition is exactly what the judges name. His showy long-ashi choji divides him from the calm suguha of the main Hizen house, while his refined komenuka jigane and bright nioiguchi keep him within it; of his gunome-midare with mixed chooji the sources write that it realizes "the midare-ba in which the swordsmiths of the so-called Soba-Hizen group were particularly adept," and the suguha yakidashi at the base of such pieces they note as one of that branch's principal points of interest. One wakizashi reverses the usual Hizen arrangement, tempering choji above and a suguha-toned shallow notare below, which the commentary calls an unusual manner within the tradition, while observing that the upper-half midare is still "the midare-ba at which he particularly excelled." He is, in the end, the brightest of the branch hands that grew up beside the Tadayoshi main line, read against it rather than apart from it.

For the collector, Yukihiro is an attainable but uncommon name from the early Edo Hizen world. Fujishiro grades him Jo saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record on file runs entirely through the Juyo rank, sixteen blades, almost all of them signed, several called by the published commentary outstanding among his work and rich in spirited force. The provenance that survives is modest and well-documented: one long offering naginata dedicated to Ise Jingu (the Daijingu) stands among the recorded pieces, the rest passing through private hands of partial record. Because nothing of his is locked away in the museum and shrine tiers that hold the very top of Hizen, a signed Dewanokami Yukihiro is not beyond the reach of a serious collector; but his Juyo blades come to light only from time to time, and a dated Aranda-kitae example or one of his most flamboyant long-ashi choji katana is a notable thing to encounter, a document of how the waki-Hizen branch carried the Tadayoshi steel into its own brighter manner.