The single piece that anchors Kiyomitsu on record is the katana dated Tenmon twenty-three (1554) and signed at full length "Bizen no Kuni ju Osafune Kiyomitsu,"[[c:1]] raised to Tokubetsu Jūyō in 2014, a broad, deep-curved uchigatana that carries no byname yet which the published sources read, from the breadth of its signature, as the work of Gorōzaemon-no-jō (「銘振りよりして, 五郎左衛門尉と鑑せられる」)[[c:2]]. He is one of the leading names of Sue-Bizen, the term used for the late-Muromachi Osafune workshops and their output collectively, and within that crowded field he is almost wholly knowable: every blade here carries an ubu tang with a long signature and a date, most of them clustered in the Tenmon years between 1532 and 1555. The published record lists as many as ten smiths who signed Kiyomitsu in this period, bearing the bynames Gorōzaemon-no-jō, Magouemon-no-jō, Yosozaemon-no-jō, Hikobei and Magobei, and singles out Gorōzaemon-no-jō and Magouemon-no-jō as the two superior hands. It is the first, the Tenmon-dated Gorōzaemon, whose work fills this record, and whom the published sources place at the head of a line that runs on into a second generation of the same byname in the Eiroku and Tenshō years.

His reputation rests first on suguha. The published sources name him, with Tadamitsu, as the master of the straight temper among the Sue-Bizen smiths (「忠光と並んで直刃の名手」)[[c:3]], and call the wide suguha the very signboard of the Kiyomitsu house (「清光家の看板であるところの広直刃」)[[c:4]]. His characteristic blade is a thick, sturdy uchigatana, broad in the body with the kasane heavy and the shinogi high, saki-zori standing toward a chū-kissaki that extends a little, over which he lays a wide suguha mixed with small gunome and small chōji. Within it the ashi and yō enter freely, and the abundant yō the sources record as his typical tell, with fine kinsuji and sunagashi running and the nioiguchi bright and clear. A robust shape tempered in this manner, with the edge well worked and the nioiguchi shining, is what the published sources call the true heart of the smith who excelled at the straight temper (「直刃を得意とする清光の真骨頂」)[[c:5]].

The jigane beneath that temper is as much a part of his recognition. He forges a packed itame and ko-itame with mokume mixed in, ji-nie applied in fine grain, chikei entering, and a faint utsuri standing pale over the surface. The published sources distinguish his jigane from that of Tadamitsu and of Yosozaemon Sukesada by its tendency to stand a little more, an itame in which the mokume shows, so that on the run of his blades the hada is the slightly more open one of the three. The exception is telling: on his finest pieces, including the Tokubetsu Jūyō katana, the same sources remark that the jigane is unusually well packed and refined by contrast with his common work, its quality lifting those blades above the rest. The bōshi returns in a small round with a sweep of hakikake, and on the straight-tempered blades runs straight to that small round, in places pointing or doubling toward the back.

Against that calm register he forges two showier manners, and the published sources treat them as fully typical of him rather than as departures. The first is a gunome-midare whose mark is the koshi-no-hiraita gunome, the gunome opened at the base, mixed with ko-chōji and small gunome over a chū-suguha base, ashi and yō well in and sunagashi running, which the sources read as bringing him near Yosozaemon-no-jō Sukesada (「与三左衛門尉祐定に近い」)[[c:6]], the other great Sue-Bizen midare hand. The second is hitatsura: the temper taken high, chōji-midare with gunome and small chōji, tobiyaki entering and muneyaki running strongly until the whole edge takes a hitatsura form, the nie laid strongly and sunagashi running. Here the published sources name a structural tell: Sue-Bizen is generally thick in the kasane, but a blade tempered in hitatsura is necessarily made thinner (「皆焼を焼いた場合は必ず重ねが薄くなる」)[[c:7]], so the thinned construction itself is the feature to watch, sometimes joined by a maru-mune the school occasionally shows. The same flamboyance appears on a shōbu-zukuri blade and on a wide tantō, the form varying while the hand stays constant.

What sets Gorōzaemon-no-jō apart within Sue-Bizen is read through his own work rather than by contrast. His bright wide suguha with its abundant yō is the manner the sources tie to his name, the calmest of his three registers, while the koshi-no-hiraita gunome and the tobiyaki-and-muneyaki hitatsura extend his range toward Sukesada and toward the showy late-Bizen taste; Tadamitsu shares the suguha but not the hitatsura, Sukesada the midare but not the straight temper held at full breadth. Several of his blades carry order-inscriptions that fix him in time and place, among them one forged below Tatsuno castle in Harima, which the published sources value as documentary evidence of the smith's movements, and one whose patron Masahide was a commander of the Urakami faction. The broad, deeply curved shapes, made for the wars of the period, are themselves part of the reading; the sources note of a wide moroha-zukuri tantō that the temper of the warring age shows plainly even in its bearing (「戦国時代の気風が姿にもよくあらわれて」)[[c:8]].

The weight of designation behind his name is steady rather than vast. One of his blades holds the Tokubetsu Jūyō rank and eighteen more are Jūyō, with nothing on record in the highest designated tiers, so his is a record built in the upper-middle reaches of designation rather than at its summit. The Tōkō Taikan values him in the middle range of the Osafune masters, and his provenance, where it is recorded, runs through houses of consequence: one katana descends from the Matsudaira house of Shinobu (「忍の松平家伝来」), and another from the swordsmith-scholar Masahide. Genuine signed, dated Gorōzaemon-no-jō blades survive in fair number for a Sue-Bizen name, and an ubu, signed example in its original form, of the kind the published sources hold up as an outstanding piece of his hand, is among the more attainable of the great late-Bizen smiths for a collector who waits, the Jūyō tier appearing from time to time, the single Tokubetsu Jūyō a landmark when it does.

The single piece that anchors Kiyomitsu on record is the katana dated Tenmon twenty-three (1554) and signed at full length "Bizen no Kuni ju Osafune Kiyomitsu,"[[c:1]] raised to Tokubetsu Jūyō in 2014, a broad, deep-curved uchigatana that carries no byname yet which the published sources read, from the breadth of its signature, as the work of Gorōzaemon-no-jō (「銘振りよりして, 五郎左衛門尉と鑑せられる」)[[c:2]]. He is one of the leading names of Sue-Bizen, the term used for the late-Muromachi Osafune workshops and their output collectively, and within that crowded field he is almost wholly knowable: every blade here carries an ubu tang with a long signature and a date, most of them clustered in the Tenmon years between 1532 and 1555. The published record lists as many as ten smiths who signed Kiyomitsu in this period, bearing the bynames Gorōzaemon-no-jō, Magouemon-no-jō, Yosozaemon-no-jō, Hikobei and Magobei, and singles out Gorōzaemon-no-jō and Magouemon-no-jō as the two superior hands. It is the first, the Tenmon-dated Gorōzaemon, whose work fills this record, and whom the published sources place at the head of a line that runs on into a second generation of the same byname in the Eiroku and Tenshō years.

His reputation rests first on suguha. The published sources name him, with Tadamitsu, as the master of the straight temper among the Sue-Bizen smiths (「忠光と並んで直刃の名手」)[[c:3]], and call the wide suguha the very signboard of the Kiyomitsu house (「清光家の看板であるところの広直刃」)[[c:4]]. His characteristic blade is a thick, sturdy uchigatana, broad in the body with the kasane heavy and the shinogi high, saki-zori standing toward a chū-kissaki that extends a little, over which he lays a wide suguha mixed with small gunome and small chōji. Within it the ashi and yō enter freely, and the abundant yō the sources record as his typical tell, with fine kinsuji and sunagashi running and the nioiguchi bright and clear. A robust shape tempered in this manner, with the edge well worked and the nioiguchi shining, is what the published sources call the true heart of the smith who excelled at the straight temper (「直刃を得意とする清光の真骨頂」)[[c:5]].

The jigane beneath that temper is as much a part of his recognition. He forges a packed itame and ko-itame with mokume mixed in, ji-nie applied in fine grain, chikei entering, and a faint utsuri standing pale over the surface. The published sources distinguish his jigane from that of Tadamitsu and of Yosozaemon Sukesada by its tendency to stand a little more, an itame in which the mokume shows, so that on the run of his blades the hada is the slightly more open one of the three. The exception is telling: on his finest pieces, including the Tokubetsu Jūyō katana, the same sources remark that the jigane is unusually well packed and refined by contrast with his common work, its quality lifting those blades above the rest. The bōshi returns in a small round with a sweep of hakikake, and on the straight-tempered blades runs straight to that small round, in places pointing or doubling toward the back.

Against that calm register he forges two showier manners, and the published sources treat them as fully typical of him rather than as departures. The first is a gunome-midare whose mark is the koshi-no-hiraita gunome, the gunome opened at the base, mixed with ko-chōji and small gunome over a chū-suguha base, ashi and yō well in and sunagashi running, which the sources read as bringing him near Yosozaemon-no-jō Sukesada (「与三左衛門尉祐定に近い」)[[c:6]], the other great Sue-Bizen midare hand. The second is hitatsura: the temper taken high, chōji-midare with gunome and small chōji, tobiyaki entering and muneyaki running strongly until the whole edge takes a hitatsura form, the nie laid strongly and sunagashi running. Here the published sources name a structural tell: Sue-Bizen is generally thick in the kasane, but a blade tempered in hitatsura is necessarily made thinner (「皆焼を焼いた場合は必ず重ねが薄くなる」)[[c:7]], so the thinned construction itself is the feature to watch, sometimes joined by a maru-mune the school occasionally shows. The same flamboyance appears on a shōbu-zukuri blade and on a wide tantō, the form varying while the hand stays constant.

What sets Gorōzaemon-no-jō apart within Sue-Bizen is read through his own work rather than by contrast. His bright wide suguha with its abundant yō is the manner the sources tie to his name, the calmest of his three registers, while the koshi-no-hiraita gunome and the tobiyaki-and-muneyaki hitatsura extend his range toward Sukesada and toward the showy late-Bizen taste; Tadamitsu shares the suguha but not the hitatsura, Sukesada the midare but not the straight temper held at full breadth. Several of his blades carry order-inscriptions that fix him in time and place, among them one forged below Tatsuno castle in Harima, which the published sources value as documentary evidence of the smith's movements, and one whose patron Masahide was a commander of the Urakami faction. The broad, deeply curved shapes, made for the wars of the period, are themselves part of the reading; the sources note of a wide moroha-zukuri tantō that the temper of the warring age shows plainly even in its bearing (「戦国時代の気風が姿にもよくあらわれて」)[[c:8]].

The weight of designation behind his name is steady rather than vast. One of his blades holds the Tokubetsu Jūyō rank and eighteen more are Jūyō, with nothing on record in the highest designated tiers, so his is a record built in the upper-middle reaches of designation rather than at its summit. The Tōkō Taikan values him in the middle range of the Osafune masters, and his provenance, where it is recorded, runs through houses of consequence: one katana descends from the Matsudaira house of Shinobu (「忍の松平家伝来」), and another from the swordsmith-scholar Masahide. Genuine signed, dated Gorōzaemon-no-jō blades survive in fair number for a Sue-Bizen name, and an ubu, signed example in its original form, of the kind the published sources hold up as an outstanding piece of his hand, is among the more attainable of the great late-Bizen smiths for a collector who waits, the Jūyō tier appearing from time to time, the single Tokubetsu Jūyō a landmark when it does.