The Ryokai school (了戒) took shape in the late-Kamakura capital of Kyoto, in Yamashiro Province, around the smith Ryokai, who worked through the era names Shoo, Einin, Kagen, Enkyo and Ocho at the turn of the fourteenth century. The old account makes him a son or a pupil of Rai Kunitoshi, and one version has him adopted into Kunitoshi's house; because his dated blades place him almost level with Kunitoshi, however, the NBTHK reads him more naturally as a contemporary (an aitedeshi, a fellow disciple) who formed his own line within the wider Rai circle. Whichever account one follows, his is the Rai Yamashiro hand softened by a degree, and from him the Ryokai name descended for several generations, his son Ryo Hisanobu (久信) following as the second master, with a Kyushu branch, the Chikushi Ryokai of Bungo and Buzen, forming by the Nanbokucho and Muromachi eras. What the members hold in common is a quiet manner read against, and just apart from, the Rai parent. Over a packed itame or ko-itame that flows toward masame and stands a little open, fine ji-nie clings and faint chikei enter, while a whitish shirake-utsuri rises in the ji; this paler, drier utsuri, against the clear midare- or jifu-utsuri of Rai proper, is the first thing that separates a Ryokai blade from its source. The temper is a calm chu- or hoso-suguha, mixing here a little ko-choji, ko-gunome or ko-midare, with ko-ashi and yo entering and sometimes a Kyoto reverse ashi; kinsuji and sunagashi run within a tight nioiguchi that grows austere and, in places, clouds into urumi, the moist soft quality the published sources name again and again as a Ryokai point. The boshi closes sugu into a small ko-maru, often brushed with a touch of hakikake. The school stands so close to Rai Kunitoshi that the two are confused at sight; the attribution settles not on any single feature but on the softer ji and ha, the standing masame, the whitish utsuri and the clouding line, the judges noting that compared with Kunitoshi the activity within the temper runs lonelier and the nioiguchi one degree tighter.
Against the sister Enju school the distinction is the boshi: where Enju turns a large deep o-maru and leaves the line bright, Ryokai closes a small ko-maru and clouds into urumi. The masame and the whitish cast carry the line a step toward Yamato and Yamato-den, and downstream toward Nobukuni and the Soshu-shaded work that followed. To kantei a Ryokai blade is to recognize the Rai air of wa-zori and refined steel, then to read the tells that part it from the parent: the jihada leaning to masame and standing where Rai stays smooth, the shirake in place of bright utsuri, and the tight, clouding nioiguchi. Among the members the founder, Ryokai, holds first standing, rated Jo-saku by Fujishiro and represented by slender ubu tachi and tanto signed with a boldly cut two-character mei, several carved with bonji and suken, alongside the bulk of his attributed record in osuriage mumei katana given to him on the hand; one such tanto the published sources call altogether elegant and a representative work, the signature itself of the archetypal type. Hisanobu, the second master, rated Jo-jo saku, carried the father's suguha on with little change, his rare signed tachi and kodachi prized as documentary evidence, one dated piece establishing through his given name that an earlier nationally designated tachi once read as the father's sole work is in fact a joint work of father and son; the remaining members and the later Kyushu generations continue the manner generically. Provenance follows the founder above all: blades passing through the Isahaya, Date and Maeda families, one preserving a tradition that it was a sword worn by Miyamoto Musashi, and the finest pieces held and studied in long-standing public and private collections including the Tokyo National Museum, the Sano Art Museum and Monobe Jinja. A signed ubu Ryokai blade in particular is among the scarcer things a collector of Kyoto Kamakura work will meet, coming to hand only with patience. Learn more →
