A warrior of the Itō clan before he was a smith, Horikawa Kunihiro wandered the provinces refining his craft, then settled at Ichijō Horikawa in Kyoto in 1599 and built the most influential workshop of the early shintō era. His disciples — many fellow natives of Hyūga who followed him to the capital — carried the manner outward: Kunisada and Kunisuke to Osaka, where they founded the Osaka-shintō tradition, while Kunimichi stayed on as the truest heir in Yamashiro. The Horikawa hand is unmistakable — a rough, boldly standing zanguri itame thick with ji-nie, a notare-and-gunome temper run through with sunagashi and kinsuji, reaching back to revive the nie-laden Sōshū aesthetic of Shizu and Sadamune. It is the school that bridged the medieval masters and the early modern sword.
The The Horikawa School (堀川), active 1573–1660 in Yamashiro Province across 27 documented smiths: 0 Kokuhō (National Treasures), 16 Jūbun, 25 Jūbi, 21 Tokubetsu Jūyō, 408 Jūyō.
Kunihiro (國廣) — Mainline · 1573-1613. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. A long katana dated Tensho 4 (1576), signed in Hyuga, carries the oldest date of Horikawa Kunihiro, whom the published sources acclaim, with Umetada Myoju, as a founder of the shinto sword[[c:1]]. Tanaka Kunihiro served as a warrior under the Ito family, lords of Obi castle in Hyuga; after that house fell he wandered the provinces, forging where he stopped, and from Keicho 4 (1599) he settled at Ichijo Horikawa in Kyoto, trained many outstanding pupils, and is said to have died in Keicho 19 (1614). The registers make him a son of Sanetada or of Kunimasa. His designation texts open with one sentence repeated for half a century: his work divides broadly into two manners[[c:2]], the Tensho-uchi of the wandering years, looking to late Soshu and late Seki, and the Keicho-uchi after the settlement, modeled on the top Soshu masters. In technique, and equally in the pupils he raised, the same texts call him the first man of the shinto age[[c:3]].
His jigane is the school's own: itame mixed with mokume and o-itame, the grain standing, in the rough, loose surface the texts name outright the zanguri hada peculiar to Horikawa work[[c:4]]; over it ji-nie lies minute and thick, and chikei enter finely. From above the machi a mizukage rises obliquely, on one Tokubetsu Juyo wakizashi noted as the mizukage that is his habit[[c:5]]. The habuchi carries a second tell: rough nie stands in uneven patches, the nioi width varies, and of one katana the published commentary writes that the slightly uneven temper and the sinking nioiguchi are Kunihiro's habits of hand[[c:6]]. He hardens the yakiba past the hamachi and widens the temper at the monouchi. Nearly everything is signed, the Keicho work above all with the large kata-ochi two-character mei beside the long residence signatures. He sets the mekugi-ana low, so that on a two-hole tang the plugged lower hole is the original[[c:7]].
The Keicho-uchi rests on a stated ideal: his goal, the sources write, lay in the revival of the Soshu tradition[[c:8]], and the leaning is strongest toward Shizu[[c:9]]. The katana of these years are wide, with little taper, shallow in sori, the chu-kissaki extended or grown to o-kissaki, a build the texts liken to a great Nanbokucho odachi cut down to a katana[[c:10]]; one Tokubetsu Juyo blade is read as a direct transcription of an o-suriage mumei Shizu, down to the half-worn look of its copied carvings. Over the zanguri kitae he tempers a shallow ko-notare mixed with gunome and pointed teeth, thick in nie, with kinsuji, sunagashi and yubashiri; the boshi runs sugu or shallowly undulating into ko-maru or o-maru, lightly swept. Beside the katana stand the wide, sun-nobi hira-zukuri wakizashi with mitsu-mune, the Momoyama form, where the copying reaches past Shizu: one Tokubetsu Juyo piece is judged in temper and carvings to recall Sadamune, and the manner of Sa is taken in so actively that the texts call one piece Samonji to the life[[c:11]].
The Tensho-uchi is another smith at first sight: hira-zukuri wakizashi and small uchizori tanto with strong saki-zori, tempered in a gunome-midare mixing togariba and angular teeth, tobiyaki and muneyaki running to a hitatsura-like effect, the nioiguchi brighter than in his later work, and warrior deities, Daikokuten and Bishamonten, carved in a strong chisel. The sources read these blades as late Soshu and late Seki at a glance, and his itinerary is written into the mei themselves: the Furuya signatures of Hyuga, a tachi of Tensho 12 (1584) and a katana both signed as made in his days as a yamabushi (山伏時作), a blade forged at the Ashikaga school in Tensho 18 (1590), and work cut in Kyoto in Tensho 19 (1591). In carving he is paired with Myoju, in force, the sources allow, even his superior; Honma takes the horimono for the smith's own hand from the one manner running through every period. At the opposite pole stands a small, quiet class: suguha is rare in him[[c:12]], and these tanto and small wakizashi, their kitae finer than his norm, their nioiguchi tighter and brighter, are read as aimed at Shintogo Kunimitsu, Yukimitsu or Rai Kunimitsu. The texts pass one judgment on all this copying: he chews the model thoroughly and creates without artifice[[c:13]], so that even there the zanguri surface, the mizukage and the uneven nioiguchi give his hand away.
What he founded outlived him in the men he trained. From the school came Dewa no Daijo Kunimichi, Kuniyasu, Osumi no Jo Masahiro, Echigo no Kami Kunitomo and the elder Kunisada, the record tracing his manner onward in Kunimichi's small-patterned ha and Oya-Kunisada's carving. The last years belong partly to that workshop: among his dated works those of Keicho 15 (1610) are the most numerous, the sources note, a year falling by the traditional reckoning near his eighty-ninth; of this period one text concludes there is no way to take it but as almost entirely the disciples' daisaku and daimei[[c:14]]. The texts set this sharply apart from forgery: supervision was strict, and the blades of these years show no falling-off.
Fujishiro rates him Sai-jo saku. Of one hundred forty-seven designated works on record, one hundred forty-six are signed and none unsigned; the single blade counted otherwise bears his large two-character mei beside the gold-inlaid cutting test of Yamano Kaemon Nagahisa, dated Kanbun 6 (1666), rare on his work. Twelve blades are Important Cultural Properties, patrimony outside the market, and twelve more are prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin; eight are Tokubetsu Juyo and one hundred thirteen Juyo, one hundred twenty-one blades in those two tiers. The tachi he dedicated to the Hataeda Hachimangu in Keicho 2 (1597), with an itomaki tachi koshirae transmitted as the donation of Emperor Go-Mizunoo, remains in the shrine's keeping. Other Important Cultural Properties are likewise shrine and temple pieces: a katana of Keicho 12 (1607) inscribed for Toyotomi Hideyori's rebuilding of the Kitano Tenmangu[[c:15]] and still held there, a ken dedicated by Kozan Shonin[[c:16]], and a katana of Keicho 9 (1604) at the Oyamazumi shrine, forged at the request of a Kamo priest. The provenance runs through the houses of his own story and of the country: blades handed down in the Hyuga Ito he had served; the sidearm of Iki Nagato no Kami Tadasumi, chief retainer of the Okayama Ikeda; pieces of the Tosa Yamauchi and of the great Shimazu house, one old scabbard inscribed for the use of lord Mitsuhisa[[c:17]]; a transmission reaching the Imperial Family; order pieces for Nagaoka Okimoto of the Hosokawa and the connoisseur Sawada Doen. What a private collector may realistically encounter is the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tier, and even there a Kunihiro is held closely, coming to market only from time to time; when one appears, it carries on its nakago the signed hand of the smith with whom the new sword begins.
Kunimichi (國路) — Mainline · 1615-1624. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Dewa Daijō Fujiwara Kunimichi worked in Kyoto in the Keichō-shintō years, the foremost pupil of Horikawa Kunihiro and, the published sources say, the most versatile hand of that whole circle, calling him "the most dexterous of the Horikawa school"[[c:1]]. His career is unusually long. Dated blades run from Keichō 13 (1608) to Kanbun 2 (1662), and one piece carries an added inscription giving his age as seventy-seven in Keian 5, so that some accounts even propose a second-generation Kunimichi for the works after the Jōō era. He is said to have lived in the Ebisugawa quarter near Horikawa, and the sword books record that he first studied under Iga-no-kami Kinmichi of the Mishina house before entering Kunihiro's gate; after his teacher's death he received the title Dewa Daijō, around Keichō 19 to Genna 1, in an arrangement sponsored by Kinmichi.
His characteristic work is a copy of the Sōshū tradition, and within it the Naoe-Shizu manner above all. The published sources are consistent on where his strength lay: he handled every tradition but Bizen with skill, "and of these the Sōshū tradition was his greatest specialty, looking devotedly to Shizu and Samonji"[[c:2]]. Over a board-grain *jigane* that stands up he tempers a *notare* and *ko-notare* base into which *gunome* and large *gunome* gather, building to a lively large *midare* with *tobiyaki*; the *nioi* is deep, the *nie* thick and at times coarse, with broad *sunagashi* and long *kinsuji*. The published sources name exactly these as the points by which he is known, his strong, lively *nie*, his large flamboyant *midare*, and the rich work of *sunagashi* and *kinsuji*. His most personal feature lies in the *bōshi*: a shallow *notare-komi* that thrusts up and turns pointed with *hakikake*, "the so-called Sanpin *bōshi*, entering in *notare* and becoming pointed at the tip"[[c:3]].
The *jigane* is where he is most himself. His *itame* stands up and is often dry and coarse, a distinctive *zanguri* texture mixed with *mokume* and flowing grain, inclining toward *masame* near the edge, with *ji-nie* adhering and *chikei* entering. It is not the unhurried, expansive steel of his teacher; it is a tauter, more worked *jigane*, and the published sources, while granting that in breadth of range he even surpasses Kunihiro, are clear that in leisurely grandeur of scale he does not match him. Across the temper run the activities he is read by, *ashi* entering well, the *nioiguchi* deep and at times brightly clear, *muneyaki* along the back of some blades, and on the more boisterous pieces a tendency toward coarse *nie* and *basake*.
Two registers divide his work. The first and most frequent is the flamboyant Shizu copy, the large *midare* fully tempered, the *bōshi* pointed in the Mishina manner, devotional carvings of *suken*, *bonji* and *gomabashi* on the *omote* and *ura*, and on his wide *hira-zukuri* wakizashi a *Fudō* or a *Kurikara*. The second is a subdued, low-temper register encountered from time to time, the *hamon* quiet, the *nioiguchi* tighter, the line dignified and sometimes carrying an archaic colour like old Shizu; one Tokubetsu-Jūyō katana of this kind lacks all flamboyance and is so richly covered in *nie* in both *ji* and *ha* that the published sources say it could "be mistaken for a work by his teacher Kunihiro"[[c:4]], proof of how completely he had absorbed the Horikawa hand. His signatures track his life across both registers, the early *Kunidō* written with the character 道, the prime full signature Dewa Daijō Fujiwara Kunimichi after he took the title, and the late pieces prefixed *Rai*, the changing name read together with the pointed *bōshi* as evidence of his connection to the Mishina house.
What sets Kunimichi apart within the Horikawa school is not a single feature but a balance. Among Kunihiro's pupils he and Izumi-no-kami Kunisada are reckoned the two most prolific, and his collaborator Kunitsugu, transmitted as either his son or his disciple, served as his capable *daisaku* and signed a joint katana before taking his own title. Against the school's other great hands his own features set him off: the standing, dry *zanguri jigane*, the pointed Sanpin *bōshi* that the Horikawa norm does not show, the thick coarse *nie* and long *kinsuji* of a thorough Shizu copy. The published sources call his finest work in this manner "the flower of his Shizu copies"[[c:5]], and praise his strongest pieces as overflowing with power, close to the highest rank of his oeuvre; his Samonji copy, too, is held to stand without disadvantage beside his teacher's.
For the collector Kunimichi is an attainable major name among the Keichō-shintō smiths, where so much of the school's best is held rather than traded. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. He has no National Treasures; his record runs instead through two Important Cultural Properties, two Tokubetsu-Jūyō and many Jūyō, sixty-eight blades in all in the Tokubetsu-Jūyō and Jūyō tiers, with seventy-five designated works on record, alongside prewar Jūyō-Bijutsuhin that include the great long *tachi* dedicated to the Goryō Shrine in Kyoto. The provenance recorded for his blades reaches into the Imperial Family and old collections, with examples now held at the Goryō Shrine and the Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto and others long in private hands. Of the seven tiers above only a small number can ever change hands, and most designated blades, even in private collections, are kept rather than sold; but a signed Dewa Daijō Kunimichi in the tradeable tier does come to a patient collector from time to time, a Kyoto Shizu copy of the first rank by the most versatile of Kunihiro's pupils.
Kunisada (國貞) — Mainline · 1624-1646. Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Izumi no Kami Kunisada signed himself, on a sword dated the eighth month of Genna 7, "Sesshu Osaka-ju Fujiwara Kunisada," and that one inscription fixes both the man and the moment: a Horikawa-trained smith already settled in Osaka, at the founding of what would become the city's own tradition of swordmaking. Collectors call him Oya Kunisada, "Kunisada the Elder," and the published sources are explicit that the name exists to separate him from his heir, written that he is so called "to distinguish him from his adopted son, Inoue Izumi no Kami Kunisada"[[c:1]], the man later known as Inoue Shinkai. He was born in Hyuga, went up to Kyoto, and is said to have entered the school of Horikawa Kunihiro; but Kunihiro died in Keicho 19 when Kunisada was only twenty-five, and the judges read his early style and signatures as in fact following his senior fellow-disciple, Echigo no Kami Kunitomo. He moved to Osaka with Kawachi no Kami Kunisuke, received the title Izumi no Kami in Genna 9, took the tonsure in old age under the name Dowa, and died in Keian 5 at the age of sixty-three, "one of the pioneers who opened the path for the Osaka smiths"[[c:2]].
His recognized hand is a broad, imposing katana in the Keicho-shinto taste, wide in body with little taper from base to tip, thick in *kasane*, and carried out to an extended *chu-kissaki* or *o-kissaki*. The forging is *itame*, frequently mixed with *mokume* and tending to stand a little, *hada-dachi*, with thick *ji-nie* and *chikei* entering freely; where the grain opens, the published sources name it the loose, vigorous *zanguri* texture of the Horikawa school, the steel of his teacher carried into Osaka. This is the *jigane* his work is read on. Over that *jigane* he tempers a *notare* base into which he sets *gunome*, *ko-gunome* and *choji*, the line opening from a short straight *yakidashi* in the Edo manner, deep in *nioi* with *ko-nie* well adhered, *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* running through it, often with *muneyaki* and drifting *tobiyaki*. The *boshi* runs straight into a *ko-maru* or enters in *midare* with *hakikake*, turning back rather long or deep. On his finest blades he adds carving: a relief *shin-no-kurikara* dragon set within the groove, with a *bonji* and paired *goma-bashi*, work the judges call distinctive and superb and count among his tells.
The *jigane* is the steady base beneath the temper. Itame with thick *ji-nie* and frequent *chikei* appears across his oeuvre, sometimes standing into that rustic *zanguri* surface, sometimes drawing tight; the deep, bright *nioiguchi* and the *ko-nie* along the edge are constants, and the activity is carried in *ashi* and *yo*, in *sunagashi* and *kinsuji*, rather than in towering clove heads. Where one Tokubetsu Juyo katana of the 27th session widens and turns vigorous, the published sources find it "rather than resembling Kunitomo, his de-facto teacher, closer to the calm, unforced character of Kunihiro himself," naming the *ko-maru-sagari* boshi and the frequent *muneyaki* as the elder Kunisada's own marks. The *nioiguchi* at times deepens, at times falls subdued, and that deliberate variation in how the *nie* gathers is itself part of his manner.
Three registers run through the work. The first is this prime *notare-gunome* katana over the bold Horikawa *jigane*. The second is a Soshu-leaning manner that looks back through his masters: the published sources read one Juyo katana as a Shizu-style piece made in emulation of his teacher, the choji not conspicuous yet the whole vigorous, and call a wakizashi an emulation of Soshu Sadamune, written "modelled on the manner of Soshu Sadamune, and well made"[[c:3]]. The third is a quiet, bright *suguha* of his late years, of which the judges note "the first generation's suguha work, though skillful"[[c:4]], survives in very few examples, and that such a blade "at a glance appears closer rather to that of the second-generation Shinkai"[[c:5]]. To these late years belong his cursive *sosho* signatures of the Dowa period, which the sources connect to his old age, when his second generation, Inoue Shinkai, is said to have served often as proxy in both forging and signing; whether a given cursive blade is the elder's own work or Shinkai's *daimei*, and whether such pieces should be read as a separate second-generation Shinkai Kunisada, remain matters the published record leaves open for further study. Where a paper does commit, naming a Kunisada-signed blade as Shinkai's substitute work and proxy signature, that blade belongs to Shinkai's record rather than to the elder's.
What sets him apart is named in his own designation papers. Against the tightly packed *ko-itame* of the old Bizen and Yamashiro lines, his standing *zanguri* *jigane* and his *notare* opening from a straight *yakidashi* are the Osaka-shinto signature, not a Bizen choji; against his own son Shinkai's brighter, more refined steel, the elder's hand reads as the rougher, more vigorous root from which the Osaka tradition grew. The judges place him with Kawachi no Kami Kunisuke at the head of that movement, his de-facto teacher Kunitomo behind him and his master Kunihiro behind that, and his heir Shinkai carrying the name forward into its most celebrated generation.
For the collector he is a major Osaka-shinto name held within reach but never common. Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs instead through the Juyo rank in number, with three Tokubetsu Juyo and several prewar Juyo Bijutsuhin, eighty-two blades standing in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers. The provenance that survives is distinguished: blades that passed through the Imperial Family, the Sanada house, and the Ito family of his native Hyuga, with one Juyo Bijutsuhin now held at the Sano Art Museum. The published sources reserve their highest words for his signed katana, calling one "a quintessential work of the first-generation Kunisada, especially deep and splendid in nioiguchi, an outstanding example among his works"[[c:6]], and another, the Soshu-flavoured Tokubetsu Juyo, simply "a blade after the elder Kunisada's own heart"[[c:7]]. Most of these are held rather than traded, and only a handful of the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo blades change hands in any decade; a signed Oya Kunisada in good condition comes to a private collector from time to time, with patience, and is a substantial acquisition when it does, a document of the founding of Osaka steel.
Masahiro (正弘) — Mainline · 1596-1615. Jūbun, Tokujū, Jūyō. Three blades survive dated Keichō 11, third month, one each a katana, a wakizashi and a tantō, and they are the only dated works Ōsumi-jō Fujiwara Masahiro left behind. He was a native of Obi in Hyūga who came up to the capital and entered the gate of Horikawa Kunihiro, the smith who reshaped Kyoto forging at the opening of the Shintō age; the published sources record him variously as Kunihiro's nephew or as his pupil and leave the question open. By the time of those Keichō 11 pieces he had already received the title Ōsumi-jō, second in early dating within the school only to a Keichō 2 work of Awa-no-kami Zaikichi, so he stood among the seniors of the Horikawa circle. Above all he is held to be the closest of all Kunihiro's pupils to the master, and is counted one of the smiths who forged in his stead. The Yakō Meishūshi appraises him in a single line, that he is said to have served as Kunihiro's deputy, and was extremely skilled ("Kunihiro ga dai o tsutomu to ieri, itatte jōzu nari").
His characteristic hand is the long katana of Keichō-shintō shape: wide in body with little taper from base to tip, shallow in *sori*, with an extended *chū-kissaki* or a large *kissaki*, the build the published sources compare to a greatly shortened Nanbokuchō *ōdachi*. Many are long and weighty, and the commentary remarks more than once on "a long and heavy build, weighty in the hand" (*chōdai de zusshiri to temochi no omoi taihai*) as something frequent in this smith even within the group. Over that shape he tempers the Sōshū tradition, but not in the showy manner usual to the Horikawa school. His is a calm hand. The body of the temper is a *suguha*-toned base or a *ko-notare* into which *gunome*, *ko-gunome*, angular and slightly pointed elements gather, with *ashi* entering, *ko-nie* adhering and at times thickening unevenly into coarse *nie*, *sunagashi* running and *kinsuji* entering, and the *nioiguchi* sunk in character. The published sources say of him plainly that "one does not see the large *midare*" (*ō-midare no mono wa minai*), and it is that restraint, more than any flamboyant copy, that identifies him.
The *jigane* is the constant beneath both his quieter and his more active blades. It is an *itame* that stands up, dry and coarse in the *zanguri* texture typical of Horikawa work, with thick *ji-nie* and *chikei* entering. What sets his *jigane* apart within that shared school texture is the *mokume*: it is mixed in with marked prominence, and the commentary singles out the conspicuous *mokume* as a distinctive trait of this smith. On several blades a *mizukage* rises from the *machi*, a feature transmitted from his teacher. The *bōshi* enters in a *midare-komi* and turns in *ko-maru* with *hakikake*, and where the temper is calmest it runs in a near-straight *suguha* manner that rounds off gently.
Across his small body of work the published sources read two registers of one hand. The frequent one is this restrained Sōshū copy, looking to the superior Sōshū masters and to Shizu above all, and on one *wakizashi*, with its devotional *bonji*, *suken* and *gomabashi* carving, to Sadamune; the commentary calls his best katana "superior works among this smith's production" (*dōsaku-chū no yūhin*), forged in "the Horikawa manner that emulates the high-ranking Sōshū masters" (*Sōshū jōkō ni naratta Horikawa-mono no sakufū*). The other register is the one the daisaku tradition rests upon: where the *nioiguchi* sinks, the *nie* thickens and gathers unevenly, and the temper is run down below the *machi* in the *yakikomi* the sources name as Kunihiro's own habit at the start of the temper. One Tokubetsu-Jūyō katana of this quieter kind is read as so close to the master that it speaks directly to Kunihiro's range. His dates, for reasons the sources cannot explain, are confined to Keichō 11, and after Kunihiro's death in Keichō 19 he is thought to have returned home to Hyūga, where he signed "Nisshū-jū", "Nisshū Obi-jū" and "Hyūga-no-kuni-jū".
What distinguishes Masahiro within the Horikawa group is exactly this quietness. The general Horikawa manner copies the high Sōshū masters in a lively, flamboyant *midare*; his does not. He keeps the temper low and the line subdued, so that the teacher's flamboyant idiom is comparatively faint in his work, while the deeper marks of the master remain. His own bright distinctions are the conspicuous *mokume* in the *zanguri* *jigane*, the sunken *nioiguchi*, the *yakikomi* below the *machi* and the *mizukage* at the *machi*. The published sources go further still: his working manner, the form of his signature, his file marks and his tang construction are all the closest to Kunihiro of anyone in the school, and even the two characters "Fujiwara" in his signature are entirely like the master's. He is the deputy hand of the Horikawa, the same Sōshū-den worked at lower temperature.
For the collector he is a scarce name, and an instructive one. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. He has no National Treasures; his record runs through one Important Cultural Property, three katana at Tokubetsu-Jūyō, ten works at Jūyō and two blades recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection, sixteen designated works on record in all. Because his blades are mostly long and were mostly shortened, an *ubu* signed katana is rare, and the published sources prize such pieces especially, counting the finest "superior works that show no breakdown despite their great length." His extant output is genuinely small. The Important Cultural Property, a katana dated Keichō 11, is held by the Tokyo National Museum, and the whereabouts of most of his other blades go unrecorded, so a signed Ōsumi-jō Masahiro comes to light only seldom. When one does, it carries two things at once, a fine Keichō-shintō sword in its own right, and the nearest surviving window onto Horikawa Kunihiro's own hand, which is what a privately held example is worth to a collector.
Kunitomo (國儔) — Mainline · 1596-1615. Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Echigo no Kami Fujiwara Kunitomo was born at Obi in Hyūga and came up to the capital in the train of Horikawa Kunihiro, settling at Ichijō Horikawa in Kyoto, where he worked through the Keichō and Kan'ei years. The published record knows him as Kunihiro's pupil, by one tradition his nephew, and as the youngest of that circle, yet it is from his pupils rather than from documents that his standing is reconstructed. No work of his bears a date, and the Edo sword books pass on little beyond his birthplace and residence. What the judges do affirm is his place in the descent of the school: because the early manner and signatures of Izumi no Kami Kunisada and Kawachi no Kami Kunisuke so closely resemble his own, the published sources conclude that "their direct instruction was clearly carried out by Kunitomo"[[c:1]]. He is thus the hinge of the Horikawa line, the man who taught the two smiths from whom the great Osaka shintō tradition would descend.
His characteristic hand is the exception within his own school. Where most Horikawa work takes the superior Sōshū masters Shizu and Sadamune for its model, Kunitomo turns instead toward late Mino. Over a notare base he sets round-headed gunome, pointed togariba and ko-notare, and the nioiguchi tightens and sinks rather than opening bright, with nie that gathers at times coarse, sunagashi running through, and long kinsuji entering. The published sources name this their point of recognition for him: it is, they write, "the hallmark of Kunitomo to show, at a glance, workmanship reminiscent of late Seki, and of Kanenoshita above all"[[c:2]]. The bōshi follows the same quiet logic, a shallow notare turning ko-maru with hakikake and a deep return.
The jigane comes in two modes, and the judges are careful to distinguish them. One is the standing, dry itame the whole school shares, mixed with mokume and flowing grain, coarse in the zanguri manner, with ji-nie and chikei; the other is a tightly consolidated ko-itame, clean and beautiful even by Horikawa standards. The sinking nioiguchi is the constant across both, so much so that when one katana departs from it the change is worth remark, the published commentary singling out a Jūyō blade in which, against the subdued temper usual to his work, "the brightness of the nioiguchi is especially noteworthy"[[c:3]]. His wakizashi carry the Mino coloration more strongly still, often in hira-zukuri or kanmuri-otoshi shapes with su-ken and gomabashi carved into the base.
Within this one hand the published sources read two registers. The prime is the late-Seki manner just described, and it reaches its clearest statement in a Tokubetsu-Jūyō katana that copies, down to its compact one-handed tang and sakizori, the uchigatana shape of the late Muromachi, from which the judges venture that "it may well be imagined that Kunitomo's ideal lay in Kaneshiba"[[c:4]]. Beside it stands a calmer register in a wide suguha over the tighter ko-itame, gentle and dignified, that approaches his teacher; one Tokubetsu-Jūyō of this kind the commentary calls a masterpiece among his works, sound in both ji and ha. His signature is itself a kantei point. He invariably cuts the same seven characters and, as the sources note, "signs them without fail in seven characters, and no dated work is seen"[[c:5]], the chisel slightly distorted and growing larger as it descends.
What sets Kunitomo apart from his fellow Horikawa smiths is therefore not refinement of the Sōshū copy but the Mino strain he carried alone, and the precision of his chisel. Among the whole group, the published sources observe, "his is the finest chisel"[[c:6]], and where his fellow daisaku for Kunihiro, Ōsumi no Kami Masahiro, often cut a long tang, Kunitomo by contrast left works in which "the tang length is somewhat compact"[[c:7]]. The contrast is a working connoisseur's tell. His calm wide-suguha pieces are held apart from the school by the cleanliness of the ji; his sinking, Mino-tinged ones, by the round-headed gunome and tight habuchi that no Shizu copy would show.
For the collector Kunitomo is a substantial but rarely traded name. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs instead through the modern designation tiers, three katana at Tokubetsu-Jūyō and some twenty-three at Jūyō, together with a prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin tachi once owned by Kishimoto Kannosuke of Kyoto. His blades are held in long-private hands, among them the Ikeda daimyō house, from whom one Tokubetsu-Jūyō descends. Signed works by him are not plentiful, and a designated example reaches the market only seldom, the more so because his finest pieces are held rather than traded. When one does appear it is a document of the Horikawa school at its hinge, the work of the quiet teacher who stood between Kunihiro and the founders of Osaka shintō.
Kuniyasu (國安) — Mainline · 1596-1615. Jūbun, Jūbi, Tokujū, Jūyō. Horikawa Kuniyasu signed only the two characters of his name, never a court title, and within the whole Horikawa school he alone cut his file marks in reverse. These two habits, more than any single feature of forging or temper, are how the published sources tell him apart. The Tanaka genealogy gives his common name as Saburōdayū and records that he was the youngest brother of Horikawa Kunihiro; other sword books make him instead a nephew, originally from Obi in Hyūga, who admired Kunihiro, traveled up to Kyoto, entered his gate and there matured. He worked in the Keichō years, at the opening of the shintō age, and his record is one of the closest in the school to its founder.
The published sources return again and again to a single explanation for how few of his signed blades survive. His manner of forging, the construction of his tang, and the cut of his signature so closely resemble Kunihiro's that he is thought to have served as one of his daisaku, the substitute hand producing work under the master's name. The first-session Jūyō commentary puts it plainly: among signed blades that survive, those bearing Kunihiro's own signature yet judged on appraisal to be wholly Kuniyasu's hand are not few. He is, in effect, the daisaku whose work stands closest of all to Kunihiro's, and the small body of pieces signed Kuniyasu is what remains once the blades that went out under his brother's name are set aside.
His characteristic hand copies the higher Sōshū masters, and within them the Naoe-Shizu manner above all, what the commentaries call 「彼が最も得意とした志津風の作域」[[c:1]], the Shizu-style range in which he most excelled. The jigane is the constant. Over a board-grain itame mixed with mokume, and at times ō-itame, the grain stands up into a coarse, dry texture the published sources name the most conspicuously standing zanguri in the whole Horikawa group and a distinctive trait of this smith; fine ji-nie sets densely and rather thickly, chikei enter well, and on several blades a diagonal mizukage rises from below the machi. The carvings run to the devotional, futasuji-hi with bonji, rendai and kuwagata, suken, gomabashi and kurikara, executed in relief and harmonizing with the wide, forceful Keichō shape.
Over that jigane he tempers a shallow, large notare into which gunome, ko-gunome and angular, squared-off elements gather, ashi entering, the nioi deep and the nie thick. The nie is the point the published sources name as his recognition: at times it coarsens and gathers in uneven clusters, hotsure breaks along the edge, sunagashi runs broadly, long kinsuji enter, and small yubashiri and tobiyaki are mixed in, while the nioiguchi inclines to shizumi, a subdued, slightly sunken line the commentaries read as a mark of this group. The boshi enters in notare or midare and turns back in ko-maru or yakizume with vigorous hakikake. Against this bold, rustic prime stands a rare second register: on one Jūyō wakizashi he tempers instead a chū-suguha with places of shallow, small notare, the nie not coarsened as usual but composed quietly in ko-nie. The published sources call examples of his suguha rare, judge this one finished with consummate skill, and liken it to 「同派の平安城弘幸を想わせる」[[c:2]], the work of Heianjō Hiroyuki of the same line.
What singles him out in the school is not chiefly his style, which is by design close to his master's, but two technical habits the commentaries name as his great points of connoisseurship. He signs only the two characters Kuniyasu and never took a court title, 「銘字は必ず二字銘にきり、受領銘はない」[[c:3]], the only one among the superior Horikawa smiths to receive no juryō. And alone in the school he cuts his file marks reverse, 「一門中、鑢目が逆筋違」[[c:4]], said to be because he was left-handed, a feature the published sources note does not appear on the blades signed Kunihiro. The same commentaries connect his two-character work in both style and signature to Kunitsugu, transmitted as his elder brother, and observe that within the Horikawa group no one but Kuniyasu produced the kiriha-built Sadamune-style copies seen among his work. From the manner of his forging and temper they read him as one who took the orbit of Sadamune for his model, 「おそらく国広の代作に任じていたためと思われる」[[c:5]], and so served the master's name with his own hand.
For the collector he is a rare and rewarding name. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. He has no National Treasures; his record runs instead through one Important Cultural Property, a katana held in the Tokyo National Museum, a wakizashi at the Tokubetsu-Jūyō rank, a prewar Jūyō-Bijutsuhin katana once owned by Jinbei Kashiwara of Osaka, and some fourteen Jūyō blades, one of them transmitted in the Shimazu family, lords of the Kagoshima domain. The published sources call his finest pieces masterworks that bear comparison with Kunihiro's own, one first-session blade praised as 「国広の傑作に比肩する出来映えで、同作中傑出した一口である」[[c:6]], comparable in quality to Kunihiro's masterworks and outstanding among Kuniyasu's oeuvre. Because so few signed works exist, and because most designated blades are long held rather than traded, a signed Kuniyasu comes to light only seldom; a privately held example is a notable thing for a collector to encounter, and it carries the added interest of a hand that, in the world at large, is hidden inside the signed work of Kunihiro himself.
Ariyoshi (在吉) — Mainline · 1597-1644. Tokujū, Jūyō. Awa no Kami Fujiwara Ariyoshi is recognized in Edo-period sword treatises -- including the *Kaji Mei Hayamidashi*[[c:1]] and the *Shinto Ichiran* -- as a disciple of Horikawa Kunihiro, resident in Kyoto[[c:2]]. His sole dated work, a katana inscribed Keicho 2 (1597), predates the permanent settlement of Kunihiro at Horikawa in Keicho 4 and is, apart from Kunihiro himself, the earliest dated blade among the master's followers. The craftsmanship of that sword already displays the skill of an upper-ranked craftsman (*joko*), and its style shares affinities with Kunihiro's celebrated "Yamanbagiri" (Important Cultural Property). From these observations, the NBTHK concludes that Ariyoshi did not so much learn the later, fully formed Horikawa manner as study more directly the style of the higher-ranked Soshu masters that underlies it. He is thus regarded as a transitional disciple from the period when Kunihiro was shedding the manner of "Furuya forging" and moving toward "Horikawa forging," and as among the most senior pupils within the group.
Ariyoshi's forging is *itame-hada* mixed with *mokume* and coarse *o-itame*, with the grain standing up to present the so-called *zanguri*[[c:3]] -- the rough, rugged texture distinctive to Horikawa works. Thick *ji-nie* forms, and *chikei* enters well. His long swords display a flamboyant *o-gunome-midare* into which are blended *ko-notare*, *gunome*, *choji*-like forms, pointed elements, and *yahazu*-like elements, producing a brilliant and varied pattern. *Ashi* and *yo* enter vigorously; *nie* adheres well, mixing in places with coarser *nie* to form uneven clusters. Long *kinsuji* and *sunagashi* run actively throughout, small *tobiyaki* appear, and the *nioiguchi* characteristically tends toward *shizumi*. His tanto reveal a different register: a *chu-suguha* basis introducing *gunome* near the *monouchi* for variation, while the steel bears a somewhat blackish tone with pronounced *shirake-utsuri*. His naginata, by contrast, show a Seki coloration in the *hamon* and *boshi*, revealing the breadth of an unusually wide working range.
Extant works by Ariyoshi are exceedingly few; even counting katana, wakizashi, tanto, and naginata together, they would likely not reach ten pieces. Yet the NBTHK has consistently characterized each surviving example as "indispensable for research on this smith" and "extraordinarily precious as documentary material." His blades convey an archaic, time-worn flavor producing a subdued (*shibui*) taste, and collectively they illuminate the critical transitional moment in which the Horikawa school took form. As source material for understanding both the individual artisan and the broader genesis of the Horikawa tradition, Ariyoshi's works are regarded as precious and highly dependable.
Other smiths
Kunisuke (國助) — Mainline · 1624-1650. The first-generation Kawachi no Kami Kunisuke was among the last pupils of Horikawa Kunihiro in Kyoto. After Kunihiro died in Keichō 19 he moved to Ōsaka with the elder Kunisada, Izumi no Kami, and the two became pioneers of the Ōsaka *shintō* smiths, with a lasting influence on the swordmaking of the city. The published sources record that he came from Kanbe in Ise Province and drew on the stream of the Ishidō smiths. They also judge, from the style of his early work and the cut of his signature, that his teacher in practice was the senior fellow-disciple Echigo no Kami Kunitomo rather than Kunihiro himself. His title of Kawachi no Kami is placed around Genna 9, close to the elder Kunisada's, because a *naginata* and a *tantō* signed Kawachi no Kami and dated Kan'ei 3 survive, together with undated works of still earlier style. That Kan'ei 3 date is his earliest, and tradition gives his death as Shōhō 4.
His Ishidō descent is the key to his hand. Within the Horikawa group, the sources write, he was the one who "most excelled at chōji"[[c:1]], so that some trace of clove pattern surfaces somewhere within his irregular temper; one later paper puts it as "chōji mixes into the temper more than in anyone else of the school"[[c:2]]. The sources treat that trace as the very point by which a blade is appraised as Kunisuke rather than another Horikawa hand.
His recognized manner opens from a straight *yakidashi* above the *hamachi*. Above it the temper widens into *gunome* mixed with *chōji*, *ko-notare* and pointed elements, with *ashi* entering, *ko-nie* well adhered, and *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* running through. The *jigane* is a tightly packed *ko-itame* or *itame* with thick *ji-nie* and *chikei*. The *bōshi* is a *ko-maru*, often swept with *hakikake*. His work is extremely close to the elder Kunisada's, and the sources name the differences: against Kunisada "his hardened area is broader and his *chōji* conspicuous"[[c:3]], his *yakidashi* broadens gradually as it rises, and his *bōshi* is tempered deep. A katana showing all of these is read as "the manner in which he most excelled"[[c:4]].
A second register shows the Horikawa schooling plainly. On one *katakiriba* wakizashi the *itame* stands and turns *zanguri*, the temper is a nie-laden *ko-notare* with *gunome*, and the sources call it a work of "strongly Horikawa coloring"[[c:5]]. Other blades are read against particular masters: one wakizashi carries "a Seki coloring"[[c:6]], which the sources tie to Kunitomo; another recalls Kunitomo's own temper; others recall the elder Kunisada. Carving is rare in his work, and the few carved blades, with *naginata-hi*, *goma-bashi* and a relief *kurikara*, are noted as such.
The sources keep a careful line between him and his son, the second-generation Kawachi no Kami known as Naka-Kawachi, who carried the name and turned wholly to the Ishidō *chōji*. One early paper reads a katana's conspicuous *chōji* as the forerunner of the son's style. A blade dated Kan'ei 19 is debated: either his own late work, or an early work of the second generation made before Shōhō 4.
Fujishiro rates him Jō-jō saku. Thirty-two of his blades stand in the Jūyō rank, with one in the prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin and one in the Imperial Collection. The published sources call his finest signed katana "one of the most outstanding among his works"[[c:7]] and others "his typical work"[[c:8]], and they value a *naginata* dated Kan'ei 3 because "its Kan'ei 3 date is also valuable reference material"[[c:9]]. Provenance, where recorded, includes the Itakura family and the Imperial Family. His surviving work is comparatively small, and katana are scarce, so a signed Jūyō example of the first generation comes to market only from time to time.
Kunikiyo (國清) — Mainline · 1624-1682. A tanto signed beneath the chrysanthemum crest with the character 一 and dated the eighth month of Tenna 2 (1682) is the fixed point of the second-generation Yamashiro no Kami Kunikiyo. The published sources call it the work of the second generation, its jigane and hamon clear and bright and the workmanship good, and they value its date as documentary evidence. He was Shinbei, the second son of the founder, the Shinshu-born pupil of Horikawa Kunihiro who served the Matsudaira house, followed his lord to Fukui in Echizen, and took the title Yamashiro Daijo in Kan'ei 4 and Yamashiro no Kami in the following year with leave to cut the chrysanthemum crest. Of the smiths who carried that title through several generations, the published sources rank the founder as the most skilled and the second generation as the next most accomplished.
A second work is given to him outright: a wide hira-zukuri wakizashi, a shape the published sources call uncommon both for this smith and for his line. Over a ko-itame with ji-nie it carries large gunome that break boldly in and out, a little tobiyaki mixed in, ashi entering well, sunagashi running, the nioi deep and the nie abundant. The texts call its jigane and hamon exceptionally splendid. Its carvings are rare as well as accomplished, and although the hand that cut them is unknown, the blade is held to be a representative example of the Echizen-bori of the day. A gold-inlaid kesa-otoshi cutting test is recorded on it.
Three katana are read toward him through the signature. Each adds the character 一 beneath the chrysanthemum crest, and the published sources state the rule they work from: no first-generation work is known with the 一, which appears from the second generation onward. Of two of them they add that the inscription closely resembles that of the Tenna 2 tanto, so that each may be the second generation's work. They are equally careful to say that the generations of Kunikiyo, above all the first and the second, cannot at present be clearly divided, and that the question awaits further research.
On these katana he tempers the suguha the published sources call the manner Kunikiyo was best at. A chu-suguha leans faintly toward notare in places, with small ashi, deep nioi and thick ko-nie. The habuchi frays here and there in hotsure with a small yubashiri, fine kinsuji and sunagashi run through it, and the nioiguchi is subdued. The boshi runs straight into a ko-maru with hakikake. On one blade the texts find the nioi deeper and the ko-nie thicker than in his usual work of this kind, the activity of ji and ha easy to see. The jigane is an itame with mokume or ko-itame, the hada standing finely, the ji-nie dust-fine and thick, fine chikei entering, and the steel takes a blackish cast. The published sources read this as the characteristic quality of hokkoku-gane, the steel of the northern provinces, shown clearly and yet refined. The shinogi is somewhat wide for the mihaba, the body full in hiraniku with funbari at the base, and the texts find the sturdy shape imposing and pleasing.
He also tempers a midare. One katana with the 一 carries small gunome, gunome and pointed gunome with a vigorous rise and fall of the hardened edge, deep in nioi and thick in ko-nie, gathering in places into muranie, with kinsuji and sunagashi and a subdued nioiguchi. The published sources set out the balance plainly: Kunikiyo's favoured manner was suguha, yet this kind of midare is also part of the work, and on this blade they see the maker's ability in a jigane that stays refined although the hada stands.
His designated record is a handful of signed, ubu Juyo blades, and the published sources place him through two kinds of evidence: the two pieces they name his outright, and the 一 beneath the crest, read against the dated Tenna 2 tanto. Because the founder and his successors kept one style and one manner of signing, the boundary between father and son remains open in the texts themselves, and a collector who meets a Kunikiyo with the 一 meets a blade the published sources lean toward the second generation without claiming certainty. Such blades come to light from time to time; the dated tanto and the carved wakizashi remain the pieces by which the second generation is known.
Kunitsugu (國次) — Mainline · 1615-1624. Echizen Daijo Fujiwara Kunitsugu is represented by a signed wakizashi designated Juyo Token at the 46th session in 2000. The published sources introduce him as one of the leading pupils of Dewa Daijo Kunimichi, together with the first-generation Shinano Daijo Tadakuni. His working dates are fixed by a katana signed Heianjo Fujiwara Kunitsugu and dated Kan'ei 11 (1634), whose reverse inscription records that it was forged in Edo in Bushu; from this the published sources suggest that in his comparatively early years he worked for a time in Edo. A further work signed Echizen no Kami Fujiwara Kunitsugu, with the reverse inscription 「於熊本以南蛮鉄」 (in Kumamoto, with imported *nanban* iron), shows that he later worked in Kumamoto as well.
The *Kokon Kaji Biko* records that in old age he signed as Hokyo Rai Kunitsugu Nyudo Jutetsu and worked in Higo around the Kanbun era, while noting that some regard Jutetsu as a different person. The published sources compare the Jutetsu signatures with his usual Echizen Daijo Kunitsugu signature, find the two characters of the name entirely in accord, and judge them to be one man, the Jutetsu works then belonging to his late years. They also consider that 「師国路の晩年には、その代作・代銘に任じていたと思われる」 (in the later years of his master Kunimichi he probably served as his substitute maker and substitute signer).
The designated wakizashi is a *hira-zukuri* blade with *iori-mune*, a notably wide *mihaba*, extended length and shallow *sori*, the characteristic shape of Keicho *shinto*. Its jigane is *itame* mixed with *mokume* and *nagare-hada*, standing and rough in the *zanguri* texture peculiar to Horikawa work, with very fine *ji-nie* adhering thickly and fine *chikei*. The temper is broad, *ko-notare* mixed with *gunome*, large *gunome* and angular elements, with *ashi*, deep *nioi*, thick and in places coarse *nie*, *sunagashi*, vigorous *kinsuji* and *nie-suji*, *muneyaki* in the upper half and a subdued *nioiguchi*; the *boshi* is rounded in a *jizo*-like form with *hakikake*, and *futasuji-hi* are carved on both sides. The published sources find in it, from shape to *ji* and *ha*, a result just like that of his master Kunimichi.
They note that 「大模様で華やかな志津風のこの手の作域は、国次にはあまり経眠しないが」 (this large-patterned, showy Shizu-like manner is seldom seen in Kunitsugu), and that a work of this kind strengthens the view that he made substitute work for Kunimichi. They judge it of excellent workmanship and powerful in its large build, and add that 「加えて国次の作風を研究する上で、資料的にも貴重である」 (it is moreover valuable as material for the study of Kunitsugu's style).
Tadakuni (忠國) — Mainline · 1624-1644. Smith of the Horikawa School.
Yoshitake (吉武) — Mainline · 1658-1661. On the reverse of a katana dated to the sixth month of Enpo 3 (1675), the swordsmith Yoshitake's signature toward the mune is answered by a gold-inlaid cutting-test inscription recording that Tomita Shigetsuna cut through three bodies in two passes. Yoshitake worked in the Horikawa line of Yamashiro and later of Edo, the son of Heianjo Kunitake, who was himself a disciple of Horikawa Kunihiro, the founder of the Kyoto Shinto school. He was commonly called Kawate Ichidayu, received the court title Izumo Daijo and later Izumo no Kami, and in his late years took the tonsure under the name Hotetsu Nyudo. The published sources hold that, while his father Kunitake was among the more unremarkable smiths of the Horikawa group, Yoshitake was a craftsman 'who surpassed his father,' and that he 'conveys the boldness characteristic of Horikawa works'[[c:1]] over a good jigane. His dated blades carry him from Enpo 3 through the Tenna era and on to Shotoku 1 (1711), a span that follows his move from Kyoto to the new capital at Edo.
His recognized strength is a broad, calm suguha. The published sources say plainly that 'he particularly excelled in works in a suguha-based style,'[[c:2]] and they set that manner beside the Hojoji school, noting that many of his blades show the kind of suguha seen in that lineage. On the dated Enpo 3 katana the hardened edge is a wide suguha-cho with gunome mixed in, ashi entering and ko-nie adhering, the nioiguchi deep, over a ko-itame closely packed with mokume and ji-nie. The shape is a dignified shinogi-zukuri of wide mihaba, shallow sori and chu-kissaki, the nakago left ubu with an iriyama-gata tip and sujikai or katte-sagari file marks, and on these cutting-test pieces the long signature toward the mune is answered on the ura by Shigetsuna's gold-inlaid record of the trial. The boshi runs straight and turns back in a small round.
Beside this steady manner runs a more active one. Over a ko-itame and itame mixed with mokume, the jigane tends at times toward a standing grain, with a touch of o-hada gathering at the koshimoto and ji-nie present throughout, the good Horikawa steel the sources credit him with. On the Tenna katana, which the published sources call one of his finest works, the temper is a ko-notare mixed with gunome and ear-shaped elements, ashi and yo entering, the nioiguchi deep and clear, fine ko-nie well-adhering and sunagashi appearing; the boshi is straight to a small round with a brushed, swept tip. A second of his finest blades runs a notare-based line with gunome and large gunome, the nioi deep and nie well-adhering, a slight suggestion of sunagashi crossing the lower half. The whole of this register reaches what the sources liken to the billowing 'toran-style midare,' and it is in this gunome-based work, rather than in the quiet suguha, that the breadth of his hand is most visible.
The two manners answer to the two halves of his career and to the company he kept. The published sources record that, although Yoshitake originally drew on the stream of the Horikawa group, in Edo his work grew close to the Hojoji school, citing as evidence collaborative blades produced jointly with Hojoji Shosho. From those joint works they infer that he maintained a notably deep relationship with that lineage, and they read the gunome-based tempering of his midare blades as confirming the same connection; the suguha that is his forte is, in their account, the very manner of the Hojoji line. His mei track the same arc. The earliest dated works sign Izumo Daijo Fujiwara Yoshitake in a large, long inscription cut toward the mune; later blades carry a date of Shotoku 1 and are signed Hotetsu Nyudo, by which time he had advanced his title to Izumo no Kami.
What the published sources press, across all four of the designated katana, is that Yoshitake stood above the father from whom he descended. Kunitake is named among the plainer hands of the Horikawa group, and the texts measure the son against him directly, calling Yoshitake a noted craftsman who surpassed his father and who carried the boldness of Horikawa work forward on a sound jigane. His own tell is therefore double: the wide suguha that the sources treat as his particular strength, and beside it the toran-leaning gunome-midare of his Edo years, the one quiet and the other active, both laid over the closely forged ko-itame and mokume jigane with ji-nie that is constant in his work. The judges describe individual blades as a 'standing-out example' and as among his finest, the language of a smith valued not as a school epigone but as a hand who outgrew his origins.
Yoshitake's record on the books is small and entirely signed: four katana, all at the rank of Juyo Token, with none carried to the higher national designations and no recorded provenance in daimyo houses. Two of the four carry gold-inlaid cutting-test inscriptions by Tomita Shigetsuna, one recording a cut through two bodies and the other through three, which fix the blades to Enpo 3 and lend them documentary weight beyond the temper. Fujishiro rates him Jo-saku, a measure of solid competence rather than of the first rank, and the designated blades are held privately, having passed through collections in Saitama, Ibaraki and Tokyo by the time of their shinsa. A signed Yoshitake of this grade is not beyond the reach of a patient collector in the way a nationally designated blade is, but with only a handful on record and a cutting-test example rarer still, one comes to market seldom, and a saidan-mei piece is a notable thing when it does.
Kunimasa (國正) — Mainline · 1615-1624. Kunimasa worked in Kyoto in the opening years of the Edo period as a disciple of Horikawa Kunihiro, and the central problem his blades pose is how few of them there are. The published sources note that extant signed works by him are exceedingly small in number, and that no example with a long signature or a date is known, so that even his personal history remains largely unrecorded. The one piece of firm documentary footing is an *ubu-mumei* blade by his senior Kuniyasu on which Kunimasa added the inscription *Kuniyasu shōsaku, Kunimasa*[[c:1]], a collaboration that fixes him as a junior member within the Horikawa circle. From the close correspondence of his workmanship, his tang construction, and even his manner of cutting a signature to Kunihiro's own signed work, the published commentary reads him as a likely substitute maker for his master during the master's lifetime. *Shintō Ichiran* records of him only 「二字に切。堀川国広門人」, that he signed in two characters and was a pupil of Horikawa Kunihiro, and adds nothing more.
His hand is the Horikawa manner in concentrated form. Over an *itame* mixed with *mokume* that stands up and at times runs into *nagare*, with an *ō-itame* element entering on the larger blades, he forges the loose, rough *zanguri* texture for which the school is known, the grain open and visible rather than tightly compacted. The temper is built on a *ko-notare* carried as the principal motif, into which *gunome* are mixed and, in places, an arrow-notch *yahazu*-like element; the *nioi* is deep, *ko-nie* adhere well, *sunagashi* run through the edge and *kinsuji* appear within it. A recurring tell of his work, and one the published sources treat as a feature of the school rather than a fault, is that the *nioiguchi* takes on a sunken, subdued *shizumi* character rather than standing bright across its whole length. The *bōshi* runs straight and turns back in a *ko-maru* with a swept *hakikake*, though on the wider blades it can run *midare-komi* to a pointed tip with a long *kaeri*.
The *jigane* is where the school speaks most clearly through him. *Ji-nie* gathers over the standing grain, sometimes coarse and clustered, sometimes a fine even sprinkling, and *chikei* enters along the open *itame*; on one katana a diagonal *mizukage* rises from just above the *hamachi*, the published description noting the grain 「区下より斜めに水影」, a water-shadow climbing from below the notch. The reading of this *jigane* is the heart of recognizing him, for it is neither the bright clear steel of a fine *ko-itame* nor a quiet uniform *jigane* but the standing, *zanguri*, slightly restless surface that the Horikawa smiths inherited from Kunihiro's Sōshū-leaning revival. The same Sōshū inflection governs the activity in the *ha*, the *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* and the deep *nioi* over *nie*, so that his blades read as a Kyoto *shintō* hand looking back through Kunihiro toward the older Sōshū tradition.
Within so small a corpus two strains can be told apart. The principal one is the Kyoto Horikawa manner described above, the substitute-maker's hand so close to Kunihiro that the tang and signature alone supported the attribution of substitution. A later strain shows a distinct silhouette, a clear difference between base and tip widths, a suggestion of *funbari*, deeper curvature and a compact *chū-kissaki*, a shape the published sources place in the Kan'ei and Shōhō years and read as the mark of a junior member of the group who continued to work after the master's death. Some of his blades carry an added inscription reading *Bushū Edo jū*[[c:2]], resident of Edo in Bushū, from which a second generation is presumed to have relocated eastward; once in Edo his work came to be confused with that of the Hōjōji Kunimasa line, a conflation the commentary is at pains to correct. Whether the move belongs to the smith himself or to a successor the published record leaves open, to await further study.
The documentary value of his surviving blades lies in how precisely they let the school be read off Kunihiro himself. The published commentary on his 33rd-session katana, naming the standing *zanguri* forging, the *ji-nie* and *chikei*, the *ko-notare* mixed with *gunome*, the *sunagashi* and *kinsuji* and the sunken *nioiguchi*, concludes that the blade 「堀川物の特色をよく示して出来がよい」, well demonstrates the characteristic traits of Horikawa work and is good in its making. His distinction is therefore drawn not by departure from his teacher but by fidelity to him, the resemblance of the work and the tang and the signature taken together as the very evidence that he served at Kunihiro's side. Against the wider field his blades stand apart through this concentrated Horikawa character rather than through any individual flamboyance, and the *ko-notare*-centered temper, the published sources allow, may itself be read as a personal hallmark within the school.
Kunimasa has six blades on record at the Jūyō level and none higher, with no National Treasure and no Important Cultural Property among them, which suits a smith of so small an output. The corpus carries no recorded provenance to daimyō houses or museums, and the holders named in the designation papers are private collectors of the Shōwa era rather than long-celebrated institutions, so that an honest account names no roll-call of famous owners. What the record does carry is the unusual closeness of expert judgment on the few blades that survive: his finest wakizashi is called 「門下中の一流工というべきであろう」, that he should be regarded as a first-rate craftsman among Kunihiro's students, while his best katana is named 「国正有銘作中の白眉」, the finest among his signed works. For the collector this is a smith encountered rarely and only as a signed work, since unsigned blades are not given to him; when one of his six recorded katana or his single wakizashi appears it is a Jūyō-level Horikawa piece valued as much for what it teaches about Kunihiro and his workshop as for itself, a quiet but instructive corner of the Kyoto *shintō* revival.
Kunikiyo (國清) — Mainline · 1615-1624. A ken dedicated to the shrine of Amaterasu Omikami and dated Kan'ei 22 (1645) carries the signature by which the published sources tell the founder of the Echizen Kunikiyo line from his successors. They call it extremely valuable as documentary material and splendid in its workmanship, and they point to the character 國 in its signature: in the founder's hand the two crossed strokes inside the enclosure run parallel, unlike the second generation and later. Yamashiro no Kami Fujiwara Kunikiyo is said to have come from Matsumoto (some texts say Matsushiro) in Shinshu, the son of the third-generation Shimada Sukemune, and to have been called Kichiemon at first. He went up to Kyoto to study under Horikawa Kunihiro and there changed his name to Kunikiyo. After Kunihiro's death he served the Matsudaira house of Takada in Echigo and followed his lord to Fukui in Echizen. He received the title Yamashiro Daijo in the second month of Kan'ei 4 (1627) and advanced to Yamashiro no Kami the following year, with permission to cut the chrysanthemum crest.
Of the smiths who carried that title through several generations, the published sources state that the first had the highest skill and the second came next. The generations kept one style and signed so alike that some works are hard to tell apart, and for that reason the texts name the founder piece by piece. A yari is called one of his superior works, and spears from his hand are rare. A wakizashi is called simply the first generation among same-name successors of the third and fourth generation. A katana in kata-kiriba and kata-shinogi construction is appraised as his, the features of Kunikiyo clearly shown in its jihada and hamon. A katana signed with the priest's name nyudo is called a work of his late years, a typical piece, and very rare in its signature.
The published sources say he was best at suguha, though works in midareba are also found. In the suguha a chu-suguha with small ashi is tempered over an itame that stands slightly and flows in places, ji-nie gathered, the nioiguchi somewhat tight with ko-nie, the boshi running straight and turning back in an o-maru. On a carved wakizashi the suguha becomes shallowly notare with a little gunome, well covered in nie, sunagashi running, the flowing itame beneath it the texts read as his.
Most of his designated blades, however, carry the midare the texts always add. A wide katana with a gold-inlaid futatsu-do-otoshi cutting test is tempered in ko-notare mixed with gunome, the notare turning angular toward the monouchi, deep in nioi, the nie thick with coarser nie mixed in, the habuchi slightly frayed, kinsuji and sunagashi abundant and the nioiguchi subdued. The published sources say this recalls the typical work of the second-generation Yasutsugu, bold and powerful, and call it a piece that shows the founder's skill to the full, outstanding among his work. A wakizashi forged of nanban-tetsu carries a large gunome with ashi and deep nioi and is called a fine example among the first generation's works, and another wakizashi shows a blackish, coarse-textured jigane under a gunome thick with nie.
The jigane is the northern steel the published sources name Echizen-gane: an itame in which mokume stands out, the hada open, the whole steel taking a blackish cast. On a Juyo Bijutsuhin katana dated Kan'ei 21 (1644) the forging is tight, with chikei and well-applied ji-nie, and the steel is dark. Several blades declare in their signature that they were forged of nanban-tetsu, the imported steel. A katana with a Kan'ei 6 (1629) cutting-test inscription is placed by the texts just after he became Yamashiro no Kami, a superior work with more spirit than his usual output. Carvings recur, Fudo Myoo and the kurikara among them, and the texts find them well executed. The note on the Juyo Bijutsuhin katana adds a scholar's reservation: although the common view counts him among Kunihiro's pupils, works that compel a necessary relationship to Kunihiro are exceedingly rare among those examined.
Fujishiro rates him Jo-jo saku. His designated record holds thirteen Juyo blades, one Juyo Bijutsuhin katana and two swords in the Imperial collection, and the ken dedicated to Amaterasu Omikami records his tie to that shrine. Signed and ubu, and often dated, inscribed with nanban-tetsu or carrying a cutting test, the founder's blades are few beside the long run of the name. Because the generations sign so alike, the published sources' piece-by-piece attributions and the 國 tell are what a collector relies on, and a Juyo blade by the first Kunikiyo comes to the market only from time to time.
Kuniyuki (國幸) — Mainline · 1596-1615. Kuniyuki signed himself Settsu Amagasaki-jū Fujiwara Kuniyuki, and that long signature, cut in bold thick chisel strokes on the omote of an ubu nakago below the mekugi-ana, is where his small surviving record begins. He was a later pupil in the circle of Horikawa Kunihiro, the Kyoto founder whose school carried the Sōshū-revival manner into the early Edo period. After Kunihiro's death in Keichō 19 (1614) he is thought to have left Kyoto for Settsu and settled at Amagasaki, and a handful of his blades narrow the address further to Hashiramoto, a place within the modern city. The published sources are careful about that name: the old sword-signature books had invariably miswritten it, and the forty-fourth-session commentary states plainly that 「柱本が正しく、現在の尼ヶ崎市内の地名である」, that Hashiramoto is the correct reading. His work is best understood not as a dated chronology but as the Horikawa hand at its most legible, read by where he signed and by which form he chose, because his blades carry no dates beyond one Kan'ei 2 (1625) piece the sources cite.
The feature that identifies him most reliably is the jigane. He forges an itame mixed with mokume that stands open in the school's manner, the grain running flowing toward the edge and roughening into the loose, granular surface the published sources call the so-called Horikawa-hada[[c:1]], with ji-nie attaching and, on one katana, fine chikei entering. The twenty-second-session katana names that jigane outright, its rough zanguri forging carrying the qualities of Horikawa work, and the same surface recurs across the corpus, named or implied on most of his blades. It is not a personal invention but the inheritance from Kunihiro, so it places him within the line as surely as it marks his own hand; for a smith of whom the sources repeatedly note that 「現存する作刀は極めて少く」, his extant works are exceedingly few, the standing zanguri ji is the steadiest thing to hold to.
Over that jigane his katana temper a notare as the main motif, mixed with gunome and angular ko-notare, ko-nie attaching well and fine sunagashi running through the ha. Ashi enter, and the nioiguchi most often settles into a subdued shizumi, sinking rather than standing bright, though on the twenty-second-session blade it is read as clear and bright instead. The bōshi runs ko-maru, on one katana with an ō-maru-inclined turnback on the ura, on others slightly pointed with hakikake and a deep kaeri. The shapes are sober: shinogi-zukuri with iori-mune, the mihaba normal to rather wide and the kasane thick, the curvature shallow to moderate with a chū-kissaki that on one long-bodied piece tightens toward the tip. Taken together the ji and ha give the quiet, astringent make the sources read as characteristic Horikawa-mono rather than anything showy.
Within so small a body of work the clearest division is by form. His shinogi-zukuri katana hold the notare-based gunome described above, while his hira-zukuri wakizashi form a distinct register of the same hand: built mitsu-mune, wide in the mihaba and sun-nobi, the kasane somewhat thick, with sakizori and at times funbari. On the earlier of these the temper is a gunome mixed with large gunome, ashi entering with tobiyaki, deep nioi and sunagashi; on the latest, designated in the forty-fourth session, the ha settles instead into a chū-suguha base bearing only a slight hint of notare, the nie somewhat uneven, the nioiguchi sinking, and the temper carried down into the hamachi. That last wakizashi is the one the commentary lingers over, finding that the rough zanguri forging and the subdued habuchi together display the Horikawa character well[[c:2]]; it calls the piece an altogether restrained make that yet yields a subdued, astringent flavor, 「総じて地味な作柄に仕上げているが、渋い味わいを醸し出している」.
Kuniyuki stands at no head of a school. His teacher is Horikawa Kunihiro, and the line runs to him rather than from him: no pupil is recorded, and his place is that of a late, minor hand of the Kyoto school carried into Settsu. The Shintō Ichiran, quoted in the forty-fourth-session commentary, fixes the connection outright, noting that he signed 「摂州住藤原国幸ト切ル」, that he at times resided in Kyoto, worked in the Genna and Kan'ei eras, and was a disciple of Kunihiro; from the surviving work the sources judge his membership in the Kunihiro group certain. His worth to the line is documentary rather than generative, the same forty-fourth-session blade singled out as valuable material for understanding the breadth of his own production and, through it, the reach of the Kunihiro school down into Amagasaki. What sets him apart on a blade is not a flamboyant signature trait but the consistency of the quiet Horikawa make: the standing zanguri ji, the notare-gunome, and the sinking nioiguchi held together in a sober, well-finished whole.
Six of his blades have reached Jūyō-Tōken, an unusual concentration for a smith whose signed work the sources call exceedingly few, and these six Jūyō pieces are the whole of his designated record, none of them raised to a higher tier. Fujishiro rates him Jō-saku, a solid second rank, and one of his katana carries its connoisseurship in the inscription itself, the patron Nakamura Kyūbei of Jōshū named on the ura, a record the commentary notes has not yet been traced. Recorded provenance is thin, one of the Jūyō pieces carrying a documented descent through a long-held family collection. None of these blades is patrimony locked forever in a museum or shrine, yet none reaches the market with any frequency; for a smith this scarce, a signed Kuniyuki is something a collector encounters only rarely, from time to time and with patience, a Jūyō piece of the Horikawa school rather than a famous name. The published sources weigh him honestly, neither inflating a minor pupil nor overlooking him, and judge the best of his work, in their own phrase, 「同工の作域を知る上で、資料的にも貴重である」, valuable for the light it throws on the breadth of his hand.
Kunimasa (國政) — Mainline · 1596-1615. Smith of the Horikawa School.
Fujiwara (藤原) — Mainline · 1624-1644. Smith of the Horikawa School.
Hiroyuki (弘幸) — Mainline · 1596-1615. Heianjō Hiroyuki, who bore the surname Shimizu, is a Keichō-era Kyoto smith of the Horikawa school, one of the pupils the published sources regard as having entered Horikawa Kunihiro's gate after the master had settled at Ichijō Horikawa in the capital. His name itself is a small puzzle the judges work out from the blades. The common account holds that he first signed Hiroyuki with the character 弘, received the title Tango no Kami, and only then changed the first character of his name to 広. A single surviving wakizashi signed Tango Daijō Fujiwara Hiroyuki[[c:1]] upsets that order, since it shows he had already taken a Tango Daijō title earlier and was by then already writing 広, and a katana that carries the surname in its inscription fixes his family as Shimizu. The published sources call this Tango Daijō piece indispensable material for the study of the smith[[c:2]], and the point recurs across his entries.
Hiroyuki works two manners over a single recognizable jigane, and the larger part of his record is the quieter one. The published sources name suguha the domain at which he was most adept within his school, calling more than one blade an example of "the suguha he handled with the greatest skill[[c:3]]." He tempers a narrow suguha, often mixing a shallow small notare and ko-gunome, the ko-ashi entering, the ko-nie laid well, and around the middle of the blade hotsure, nijuba and kuichigai-ba with fine kinsuji and sunagashi and frequent muneyaki, the nioiguchi often a little subdued. Over this he sets his other and rarer hand, a midare the judges read as a copy of the superior Sōshū masters, with thick at times coarse nie, broad sunagashi running to a banded effect, long kinsuji, vigorous yubashiri and a boshi swept up into a flame-like point. The first manner is gentle and antique, the second bold and rustic.
The jigane is the constant beneath both. He forges a standing, dry itame mixed with mokume and flowing grain, raised into the rough zanguri texture the published sources call the Horikawa-hada, with dense fine ji-nie and fine chikei entering. What sets his steel apart within the school is its colour. The kane carries a markedly blackish cast that the judges read as this smith's particular flavour, and on his suguha tantō it draws the comparison they make explicit, an antique tone that "calls to mind that of old Yamato work[[c:4]]." One katana is read as strongly Yamato in temperament, recalling old Tegai, while the kanmuri-otoshi and katakiriba tantō are called rare pieces that take Yamato workmanship as their model. The blackish jigane gives even his Keichō-shintō shapes the feel of an older age.
His surviving work divides cleanly by form and by period. The published sources note that wakizashi and tantō outnumber his katana, and that his dated pieces are confined, for reasons left unexplained, to the single Keichō 13 year, the few examples being an August wakizashi and tantō and a September tantō, all signed 弘幸. The early 弘幸 and later 広幸 signatures, together with the Heianjō, Heianjō-jū and Heianjō Horikawa-jū prefixes, let the judges place a given blade in his career. Within the Sōshū register one wakizashi takes Sadamune as its target, and the judges grant it is unusual for a smith most at home in suguha to work so freely, the uneven ha-nie and subdued nioiguchi confirming a Horikawa hand even there. A Mino-flavoured wakizashi with a pointed Sanpin-style boshi is read instead as recalling Kunimichi and the Sanpin smiths.
What sets Hiroyuki apart from his fellow pupils of Kunihiro is named in nearly every one of his entries, and it lies in the tang rather than the blade. Where the Horikawa group cuts sujikai or ō-sujikai file marks, Hiroyuki alone uses kiri-yasurime or an extremely shallow katte-sagari, so that the judges repeatedly write that "this smith alone uses kiri-yasuri[[c:5]]," an idiosyncrasy that makes him a distinctive presence within the school. His other distinctions are drawn from his own traits rather than borrowed from a rival: his suguha is the calmest hand in a school known for nie-laden flamboyance, his blackish steel the most antique in colour, and his midare, when it comes, the most rustic and demonstrative. He stands in the second generation of the Horikawa line, carrying Kunihiro's manner of standing itame and drifting yubashiri into the early Edo decades.
For the collector Hiroyuki is a rare and quiet name. Fujishiro grades him Jō saku. His surviving output is small, the published sources calling it comparatively few, and his record runs entirely through the Jūyō rank, across many sessions, without a National Treasure or an Important Cultural Property among the designated works on record. Provenance is thin: his blades have passed through private hands in Japan and abroad, with one wakizashi recorded in a Netherlands collection, but no daimyō house or museum is grounded in his own data, and the honest reading is that little of his work circulates. A signed Heianjō Hiroyuki, and above all one of the dated Keichō 13 pieces or the unique Tango Daijō wakizashi the judges call "indispensable for research into Hiroyuki," comes to light only seldom, so that a privately held example is a notable thing for a collector to encounter, valued less for grandeur than as a document of how one Horikawa pupil kept his own hand in suguha and his own file in the tang.
Hirozane (廣實) — Mainline · 1596-1615. Hiromi was a disciple of Horikawa Kunihiro, regarded since the Edo period as having once used the name Kunihiro himself -- though modern research correctly identifies him as an independent student. Together with Osumi Daijo Masahiro, he is counted among Kunihiro's pupils whose work most closely approaches the master's own style. The two characters "Fujiwara" in Hiromi's inscriptions correspond entirely to those of Kunihiro, and the character *hiro* is also strikingly similar. It is likely that throughout his life he served in the capacity of *daisaku* (substitute making) and *dai-mei* (substitute signing) for his master, and consequently few signed works survive.
Hiromi's forging displays the distinctive *zanguri* (rough-textured) quality characteristic of the Horikawa group: an *itame-hada* mixed with *mokume*, with standing grain, plentiful *ji-nie*, and *chikei*. The steel carries a blackish *kanairo* tone. His *hamon* typically takes the form of *ko-notare* mixed with *gunome*, with deep *nioi*, well-adhering *nie*, and the appearance of *sunagashi* and *kinsuji*. In some works *yubashiri* and *tobiyaki* are present, with *muneyaki* appearing in places. The *boshi* enters in *midare-komi* and tends toward a pointed form with *hakikake*. In these points, "characteristics of the Horikawa group appear throughout," and the cadence of the *midare* shows an unbroken affinity with the style of Kunihiro's so-called Furuya-uchi works.
Among the already small number of surviving signed pieces, his oeuvre encompasses katana, wakizashi, and a notably rare naginata -- the last described as possessing an archaic flavor in which "both *ji* and *ha* are outstanding." The NBTHK consistently emphasizes that his workmanship most closely resembles Kunihiro's own, and it may be inferred that among Kunihiro's signed works "there must be a considerable number that are, in fact, Hiromi's *daisaku* and *dai-mei*."
Kanemichi (兼道) — Mainline · 1532-1555. Smith of the Horikawa School.
Kunimori (國盛) — Mainline · 1615-1624. Smith of the Horikawa School.
Kunitora (國虎) — Mainline · 1684-1688. Izumi no Kami Fujiwara Kunitora is traditionally said to have been a descendant of Horikawa Kuniyasu, who served the Torii family, lords of Iwaki Castle. He later went to Osaka and studied under Inoue Shinkai, after which he returned to his home province of Iwaki, entering the service of the Naito family. His family name was Nemoto, and he held the honorary title Izumi no Kami, though it is unclear when he received it. Among dated examples, inscriptions from the Jokyo and Hoei eras are found, with the earliest known work bearing the date Jokyo 1 (1684). He is said to have died in Kyoho 3 (1718) at the age of sixty-one. A second generation is recorded as active around the Kan'en period, though his works are also rare.
Relatively few of Kunitora's works are extant; those that survive are chiefly *katana*. His style is described as "skillful and resembling Shinkai's work," yet he produced almost no *suguha*; instead, he was particularly adept at *ko-notare* combined with *gunome-midare*. The *kitae* is characteristically dense *ko-itame-hada* with well-adhering *ji-nie*, and on certain examples *itame* mixed with *mokume* showing a flowing tendency. The *hamon* typically features a *notare*-based pattern mixed with large gunome, with thick *ashi*, deep *nioi*, and well-adhering *ko-nie*, finished with *sunagashi* and a base *yakidashi*. The *boshi* is consistently straight with *ko-maru*. An inscription found on several works reads "以颪湯鉄作之" -- "made this using *oroshi-yutetsu*" -- where *yutetsu* refers to pig iron processed into steel for forging.
The NBTHK characterizes Kunitora as a smith of "considerable skill" based on surviving examples, and his best katana are called "representative works among his production." Despite the rarity of signed examples, the quality of extant pieces -- praised for their skillful Shinkai-derived technique adapted to the forging traditions of Iwaki Province -- establishes Kunitora as a noteworthy figure among the regional *shinto* smiths of the late seventeenth century.
Kunitsugu (國次) — Mainline. Jinnojo Kunitsugu of the Horikawa school is known from a single signed wakizashi, designated Juyo Token at the 18th session in 1969. The published sources note that this Kunitsugu does not appear in the general meikan current since the Edo period, but that the blade is at a glance the work of the Horikawa Kunihiro group: 「この国次は江戸時代以来の一般銘鑑にはないが、一見堀川国広一門の作と鑑せられるものである」. They identify him from the Kunihiro genealogy, which records a Jinnojo Kunitsugu as the younger brother of Kunimasa and the elder brother of Kuniyasu[[c:1]].
The wakizashi is hira-zukuri with a mitsu-mune, wide in mihaba, somewhat thick in kasane and with very shallow sori. Its *itame* is well forged with *ji-nie* and tends to stand slightly. The temper is wide, a shallow and large *notare* mixed in places with *ko-gunome*, deep in *nioi* with *ko-nie* well attached; the *boshi* runs in with a Jizo-like turn and returns deeply. The ubu tang carries a bold two-character signature below the peg hole.
The published sources draw out a family trait in the file marks: like his brother Kuniyasu he files the tang in the left-handed manner, 「国安も左鑢であるが、国次もそれと同様であることは流石兄弟とて争われぬものがある」. They also point to the *yakidashi* and the *mizukage* as features shared with Horikawa work, adding that they are by no means the result of retempering.
They judge the ji and ha splendid, but know no other surviving work by him[[c:2]]. He is distinct from Echizen Daijo Kunitsugu, the pupil of Kunimichi, who has his own entry.
Yoshikuni (義國) — Mainline · 1615-1624. Smith of the Horikawa School.
Kunitake (國武) — Mainline · 1624-1644. Smith of the Horikawa School.
Kuninori (國儀) — Mainline · 1615-1624. Smith of the Horikawa School.
Narihiro (成廣) — Mainline · 1615-1624. Smith of the Horikawa School.