Jitsua of Chikuzen is dated by his own hand: tachi 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-Sa, the prodigy Samonji, placing him at the hinge of the Kyūshū classical line just before it turned toward the bright Sōshū manner. He works within the tradition descending through Ryōsai, Nyūsai and Sairen, and the NBTHK reads his blades as adhering closely to that range, faithfully preserving, in their words, "the working domain of the Kyūshū classical group"[[c:1]].

His characteristic hand is that classical Kyūshū manner carried to its most vigorous. The forging is a large itame mixed with ō-itame and mokume that stands out and flows into nagare, turning toward masame near the edge and, in his most distinctive pieces, taking on an ayasugi-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"[[c:2]]; they note further that this standing, flowing jigane at times recalls the Naminohira of the same province. Over it he tempers a low or fine suguha, the habuchi fraying into hotsure, the published record characterizing his temper as a straight one in which "the nioiguchi tends toward urumi"[[c:3]], with ko-nie adhering and sunagashi and kinsuji running through. The bōshi runs straight with hakikake to a ko-maru, at times finishing as yakitsume.

The jigane is the constant, and it is dark. Thick ji-nie scatters over the standing grain, chikei enter, and the steel takes on a blackish, iron tone over which a faint whitish shirake-utsuri rises along the shinogi. This is the Kyūshū jigane, distinct from the bright midare-utsuri of Bizen steel, and it stands together with the dark steel and the moist nioiguchi as the triad by which Jitsua is recognized. Where the forging tightens the utsuri grows clearer; where it loosens into the broad, flowing ō-itame the dark, rough character that the judges name as his comes forward. In both ji and ha the published commentary finds what one entry calls a "Kyūshū temperament"[[c:4]] 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: tachi, several broader in body than the slender constructions of Irinishi and Sairen, with thick kasane, strong funbari and a high koshi-zori even where shortened, alongside two slender signed tantō in orthodox uchi-zori form. What sets the signed pieces apart is the signature itself, a two- or three-character mei cut unusually large and bold near the nakago-jiri, the strokes ordinary in form but the characters far larger than usual, so bold that one Tokubetsu Jūyō entry calls it "large to a degree without parallel among other examples"[[c:5]]. On the other side stands the broad body of his record, the ō-suriage mumei katana and naginata-naoshi affirmed to him from era and school, in which the same forging and the same 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 jigane; and he is held apart from his celebrated son by temper and steel alike, for where the published sources say "Ō-Sa perfected a Sōshū-den manner in which both ji and ha are bright and clear"[[c:6]], Jitsua's own suguha stays low and subdued, the nioiguchi moist over a dark, standing jigane. 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 saku. He has no National Treasures; his record runs instead through one Important Cultural Property, the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō ranks, and the prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin, with twenty-four blades in the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers. Of recorded whereabouts his blades are preserved in long-held collections and institutions: the dignified signed tachi 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 tantō scarcely to be found at all, so an in-mei Jitsua comes to light only seldom; even among the ō-suriage mumei 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 Samonji was born.

Jitsua of Chikuzen is dated by his own hand: tachi 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-Sa, the prodigy Samonji, placing him at the hinge of the Kyūshū classical line just before it turned toward the bright Sōshū manner. He works within the tradition descending through Ryōsai, Nyūsai and Sairen, and the NBTHK reads his blades as adhering closely to that range, faithfully preserving, in their words, "the working domain of the Kyūshū classical group"[[c:1]].

His characteristic hand is that classical Kyūshū manner carried to its most vigorous. The forging is a large itame mixed with ō-itame and mokume that stands out and flows into nagare, turning toward masame near the edge and, in his most distinctive pieces, taking on an ayasugi-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"[[c:2]]; they note further that this standing, flowing jigane at times recalls the Naminohira of the same province. Over it he tempers a low or fine suguha, the habuchi fraying into hotsure, the published record characterizing his temper as a straight one in which "the nioiguchi tends toward urumi"[[c:3]], with ko-nie adhering and sunagashi and kinsuji running through. The bōshi runs straight with hakikake to a ko-maru, at times finishing as yakitsume.

The jigane is the constant, and it is dark. Thick ji-nie scatters over the standing grain, chikei enter, and the steel takes on a blackish, iron tone over which a faint whitish shirake-utsuri rises along the shinogi. This is the Kyūshū jigane, distinct from the bright midare-utsuri of Bizen steel, and it stands together with the dark steel and the moist nioiguchi as the triad by which Jitsua is recognized. Where the forging tightens the utsuri grows clearer; where it loosens into the broad, flowing ō-itame the dark, rough character that the judges name as his comes forward. In both ji and ha the published commentary finds what one entry calls a "Kyūshū temperament"[[c:4]] 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: tachi, several broader in body than the slender constructions of Irinishi and Sairen, with thick kasane, strong funbari and a high koshi-zori even where shortened, alongside two slender signed tantō in orthodox uchi-zori form. What sets the signed pieces apart is the signature itself, a two- or three-character mei cut unusually large and bold near the nakago-jiri, the strokes ordinary in form but the characters far larger than usual, so bold that one Tokubetsu Jūyō entry calls it "large to a degree without parallel among other examples"[[c:5]]. On the other side stands the broad body of his record, the ō-suriage mumei katana and naginata-naoshi affirmed to him from era and school, in which the same forging and the same 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 jigane; and he is held apart from his celebrated son by temper and steel alike, for where the published sources say "Ō-Sa perfected a Sōshū-den manner in which both ji and ha are bright and clear"[[c:6]], Jitsua's own suguha stays low and subdued, the nioiguchi moist over a dark, standing jigane. 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 saku. He has no National Treasures; his record runs instead through one Important Cultural Property, the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō ranks, and the prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin, with twenty-four blades in the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers. Of recorded whereabouts his blades are preserved in long-held collections and institutions: the dignified signed tachi 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 tantō scarcely to be found at all, so an in-mei Jitsua comes to light only seldom; even among the ō-suriage mumei 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 Samonji was born.