Awataguchi Kuniyasu worked at Awataguchi in Kyoto in the early Kamakura period, third of the six brothers, Kunitomo, Hisakuni, Kuniyasu, Kunikiyo, Arikuni and Kunitsuna, who made the school famous, and was called Tosaburo (藤三郎). The published sources count him, with his elder brothers Kunitomo and Hisakuni, among the goban-kaji of the Retired Emperor Go-Toba, and the sword references place his activity around the Jokyu era (1219 to 1222). His surviving signed works are tachi, comparatively numerous for so early a smith; the single signed tanto, recognized at Juyo session 31, is for that reason called "extremely precious"[[c:1]]. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku.
His blades keep the figure of their day, slender, with high koshizori and a small kissaki, the curve settling faintly toward the point; one source reads the bearing as a gentle taoyame grace. On this figure he tempers a small-patterned ko-midare in ko-nie-deki, mixing ko-choji and ko-gunome over a suguha base, with kinsuji and fine sunagashi in the ha. The intervals of the midare press close, for "many examples show the spacing of the midare drawn tight"[[c:2]], and where the small gunome run linked in series the judges go further, writing of one unsigned katana that by this linked tendency "even within the school it should be possible to specify Kuniyasu"[[c:3]]. The nioiguchi, "as with Kunitomo, characteristically clouds into urumi"[[c:4]]; yubashiri gathers above the yakigashira, where one source finds "this smith's habitual hand"[[c:5]] plainly discernible; on another blade the forked, karimata-like uchinoke at the yakigashira reveals the same characteristic features. The boshi runs sugu to a small ko-maru, at times yakizume, the tip lightly brushed with hakikake.
The jigane divides in two, and the published sources state the split outright: in his forging "there are two kinds, one with standing hada and one tightly knit"[[c:6]]. The tight register is packed ko-itame, ji-nie adhering in fine dust, slender chikei woven through, at times a faint nie-utsuri rising toward the shinogi; the surface takes on the pear-skin texture the sources call "the school's characteristic nashiji-hada"[[c:7]], and blades of this kind are read as "the manner closer to Hisakuni"[[c:8]]. The standing register shows itame with the grain raised, jifu mingled in and chikei conspicuous, and the published record ties it to his signed work: "among this smith's signed pieces those with prominently standing itame are comparatively many"[[c:9]].
The two registers sort loosely by signature: most unsigned attributions are of the refined nashiji type and travel on Hon'ami judgments, a kinpun-mei of Hon'ami Koson, a kinzogan of Hon'ami Mitsutada, an origami of Hon'ami Koyu dated Genbun 3 (1738). The scholarship is candid about his softest quality: an early text judges of the shadowed dullness that often settles in his edge that "rather than a point of appreciation it is instead a defect"[[c:10]], while later texts call the urumi "one of this smith's notable features"[[c:11]]. His two-character signature was cut both large and small, and "in either case the character An shows its distinctive features"[[c:12]], its cursive abbreviation always the same, a major point in judging his mei. Honma notes of the attributed pieces that "among the kiwame-mono there are occasionally wide ones like this sword"[[c:13]], robust blades apart from his usual slender build.
Within Awataguchi he is the midare brother. The school's later course runs through Norikuni to Kuniyoshi and Yoshimitsu and settles into bright suguha, while Kuniyasu holds to the compressed ko-midare of the founding generation and its clouded nioiguchi. His sugata follows Hisakuni, and his tightest jigane approaches that brother closely; yet the linked ko-gunome picks him out alone within the school, and the pressed intervals and the urumi he shares only with Kunitomo. Against the later generations the judgment entered on his signed tanto is direct: "compared with Norikuni and Kuniyoshi the interior of the ha works well"[[c:14]], fully showing, the same text concludes, the depth of flavor of Awataguchi work.
Twenty-three designated works stand on record: three Important Cultural Properties, all signed tachi, with five Juyo Bijutsuhin, two Tokubetsu Juyo and twelve Juyo, fourteen blades in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers together; nine pieces in the record are signed against eleven unsigned. Eleven blades carry recorded provenance, through the Owari Tokugawa house, one a gift of the shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi to Yoshimichi, fourth lord of Owari, and through the Tsugaru, Nanbu, Matsudaira, Mizoguchi and Hosokawa families and the Imperial Family. Of recorded whereabouts his blades rest with the Tokugawa Art Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, the Sano Art Museum and the NBTHK itself. The three Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved where they stand; some fifteen blades of recorded rank sit in the tiers that may lawfully change hands, and most are held rather than traded. The published record remarks that signed tachi by Kuniyasu are encountered from time to time, and that is the honest measure of him: a goban-kaji of Go-Toba whose work a patient collector may still hope to meet, though each appearance of a Juyo example is an occasion.
