薙刀 銘 兼元
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Muromachi
About the school
Kanemoto School兼元派
Kanemoto (兼元) worked at Akasaka in Mino Province, and the line takes its place among the smiths of the late Muromachi period whom the NBTHK registers under the *Mino-den* tradition centered on Seki. The setsumei place the family within the Sue-Seki (Sue-Mino) milieu, naming Kanemoto alongside Kanesada as the two leading figures of the province in this era; one *tantō* note instead pairs the name with Kaneshiba, and another with Izumi no Kami Kaneshige, marking the company the line kept. The name passed through successive generations, and the records repeatedly state that distinguishing each generation has not been definitively settled. Dated long signatures reading "Nōshū Akasaka-jū Kanemoto" survive from the Meiō, Bunki, Daiei, Kyōroku, and Eishō eras, while two-character signatures bear no date. The first generation is documented through pieces dated Meiō 6, 8, 9, and 10, all giving the Akasaka residence; the most accomplished hand, and the one the world singles out under the sobriquet "Magoroku Kanemoto," is the second generation. The shared vocabulary of the line is the *sanbonsugi* (three-cedar) *gunome*, a sequence of linked pointed crests that rise and fall in groups. The ground is *Mino-den* through and through: *itame-hada* mixed with *mokume* and flowing *masame*, tending toward standing grain (*hada-dachi*), with fine *ji-nie*, *chikei*, and a whitish *shirake-utsuri* that the setsumei call out again and again. The temper mixes *togariba* (pointed elements) and *gunome*, is *nioi*-dominant with *ko-nie*, and runs *sunagashi*, *kinsuji*, and occasional *tobiyaki*; the *bōshi* is typically *midare-komi* turning in *ko-maru*, often described as *Jizō*-like with *hakikake* or a falling *kaeri*. The chief means of separating the second generation from the later line is regularity: as the generations descend, the pointed crests grow sharply angular and standardized, whereas Magoroku's *sanbonsugi* is deliberately uneven, the *gunome* heads rounded in places, and the pattern shifts freely into *nihonsugi*, *yonsugi*, and *gosugi* groupings of two, four, and five. The records describe this as a *gyōsō* (cursive, free) manner. The first generation, by contrast, does not emphasize *sanbonsugi* at all, favoring *gunome* mixed with *gunome-chōji* and at times *yubashiri* and *tobiyaki*; both generations also made *suguha*, and one *tantō* is an uncommon *Rai-utsushi* in elegant straight temper that evokes Kaneyuki. For kantei, the line is read through the standing *Mino* grain, the *shirake-utsuri*, and above all the irregular *sanbonsugi*, with the leaning *bōshi* a noted point: the records observe that the *honka* model and these blades share a *bōshi* that falls over. Named and documented works recur across the register. A *naginata* dated Kyōroku 1 (1528) carries the full Akasaka signature and is valued as documentary source material, dated two-character pieces being scarce. A katana bearing a *kinzōgan* inscription on the reverse is known as "Sasatsuyu Kanemoto" and is recorded in the hands of Makishima Kenmotsu Akishige, of the same clan as Furuta Kosukezaemon. The "Aoki Kanemoto," a second-generation work, is said to be the sword with which Aoki Ichishige, a retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasu, killed Magara Masataka of the Asakura side at the Battle of Anegawa in Genki 1 (1570). A further katana carries a Genna 1 (1615) *kinzōgan* cutting-test inscription by Nakagawa Saheita reading "two bodies," and one *suguha* katana descended in the Echizen Matsudaira family. Two katana signed Kanemoto sit in the Imperial Collection (Gyobutsu). Across these works the line is registered as the cutting-edged representative of Sue-Seki, its hand recognized wherever the three-cedar temper runs uneven over standing Mino steel.
