Jitsua of is dated by his own hand: survive inscribed Genkō 3 (1333) and Kenmu 2 (1335), and a Kareki 2 (1327) sword drawing is recorded in the old swordbooks, so his period of activity is among the most securely fixed of his group. The published sources transmit him as the son of Sairen Kuniyoshi and the father of Ō-, the prodigy , placing him at the hinge of the Kyūshū classical line just before it turned toward the bright manner. He works within the tradition descending through Ryōsai, Nyūsai and Sairen, and the reads his blades as adhering closely to that range, faithfully preserving, in their words, "the working domain of the Kyūshū classical group".
His characteristic hand is that classical Kyūshū manner carried to its most vigorous. The forging is a large mixed with and that stands out and flows into , turning toward near the edge and, in his most distinctive pieces, taking on an -like grain. The published sources single him out within the lineage as the roughest and most unruly forger, the one with "the strongest tendency in the group toward a vigorous, rough character"; they note further that this standing, flowing at times recalls the Naminohira of the province. Over it he tempers a low or fine , the fraying into , the published record characterizing his temper as a straight one in which "the tends toward ", with adhering and and running through. The runs straight with to a , at times finishing as .
The is the constant, and it is dark. Thick scatters over the standing grain, enter, and the steel takes on a blackish, iron tone over which a faint whitish rises along the . This is the Kyūshū , distinct from the bright of steel, and it stands together with the dark steel and the moist as the triad by which Jitsua is recognized. Where the forging tightens the grows clearer; where it loosens into the broad, flowing the dark, rough character that the judges name as his comes forward. In both and the published commentary finds what one entry calls a "Kyūshū temperament" of this period, distinct also from Yamato work, a regional coloration counted among the principal points of appreciation.
His record divides naturally into two registers. On one side stands the small body of signed work, extremely few in number and the documentary anchor for the whole line: , several broader in body than the slender constructions of Irinishi and Sairen, with thick , strong and a high -zori even where shortened, alongside two slender signed in orthodox uchi-zori form. What sets the signed pieces apart is the signature itself, a two- or three-character cut unusually large and bold near the , the strokes ordinary in form but the characters far larger than usual, so bold that one entry calls it "large to a degree without parallel among other examples". On the other side stands the broad body of his record, the and affirmed to him from era and school, in which the forging and the subdued straight temper appear.
What separates Jitsua from his neighbours is exactly what the judges name. He is set apart from his quieter forebears Sairen and Nyūsai by his broader construction and his rougher, more flowing ; and he is held apart from his celebrated son by temper and steel alike, for where the published sources say "Ō- perfected a Sōshū-den manner in which both and are bright and clear", Jitsua's own stays low and subdued, the moist over a dark, standing . His is the classical Kyūshū root from which that brilliance grew, and the judges read his blades as the very foundation from which the prodigy of the next generation would emerge.
For the collector he is a rare early Kyūshū name. Fujishiro grades him Jō . He has no National Treasures; his record runs instead through one Important Cultural Property, the and ranks, and the prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin, with twenty-four blades in the and tiers. Of recorded whereabouts his blades are preserved in long-held collections and institutions: the dignified signed transmitted in the Uesugi family, others descending through the Shimazu and the Yanagawa Tachibana houses, a Jūyō Bijutsuhin held at the Sano Art Museum from the Ninomiya collection and another at the Kurokawa Institute, with further blades recorded at Kyoto National Museum and Atsuta Jingū. Signed work is the scarcer thing by far, the signed scarcely to be found at all, so an in- Jitsua comes to light only seldom; even among the attributions, most are held rather than traded, and a privately held example is a notable thing for a collector to encounter, a document of the Kyūshū hand from which was born.