Kunitoki is the representative master of the Enju school of Higo, the line that carried the Yamashiro Rai manner south into Kyushu. The published sources trace the school to Tarō Kunimura, transmitted as an "outside grandson" of Rai Kuniyuki of Yamashiro through a daughter, and they place Kunitoki among the best-known smiths of the group, variously recorded as the son or the pupil of the founder. His working life runs from the close of the Kamakura period into Nanbokucho at Kumafu in the Kikuchi District; dated survivals carry the Southern-Court eras, one tachi signed Shōhei 7 (1352), placing his late hand in the middle of the fourteenth century. The school is judged to show little individual variation and to resemble Rai broadly, so that the Enju manner reads almost as one hand. Within that uniformity Kunitoki stands out for two reasons. The published record judges that "relatively many of his works survive, and the average quality of his workmanship is high"[[c:1]], and his hand worked the school's restrained suguha busier than any other of the line.
His characteristic manner is a chū-suguha or hoso-suguha that refuses to stay plain. Where the published sources record that "many works of the group temper a suguha sparing in internal activity," Kunitoki breaks his straight temper with continuous ko-gunome, occasional ko-chōji and pointed teeth, ko-ashi and yō entering well, ko-nie gathering along the edge, with fine sunagashi and kinsuji playing through. On his best blades the nioiguchi, which the school carries somewhat shizumi (subdued) against the brighter Rai, turns bright and clear. The school's own nature pulls the other way, and it is precisely because of that restraint that a lively blade reads as exceptional: of one tachi the published commentary writes that it shows "a midare-dominant tempering rare not only for Kunitoki but for Enju works generally"[[c:2]], and of a suriage katana with strong nijūba, kinsuji and a bōshi that goes into midare with vigorous hakikake, that it presents "the most active hamon not only of this smith but within the whole school"[[c:3]]. That a single blade can be called both rare and the most active is the measure of how quiet the line normally runs, and of how far Kunitoki pushes against it.
The forging is the school's whole inheritance read clearly. Over an itame or tightly forged ko-itame, generally flowing and gathering a masame-like tendency toward the edge, fine dust-like ji-nie adheres well and fine chikei enter, and the school's whitish shirake-utsuri stands in the ji. This whitish utsuri is the prime point the published sources name in separating Enju from Rai, and it sits on a jigane that keeps the Kyoto refinement of the parent while taking on the flowing Kyushu steel. The bōshi most often runs straight and closes in a ko-maru, frequently brushed with hakikake, and sometimes turns back round and shallow as a large ō-maru in the school habit. The signature, when present, is a large two-character mei, and the published sources repeatedly single out one calligraphic tell: in the character kuni (国), the right half within the enclosing strokes is cut in an "ear-shaped" manner[[c:4]], a writing habit shared by the whole Enju line that cannot be confused with another school.
The surviving record falls into two registers. The first is signed and ubu: long tachi with a deep koshizori and funbari, and broad hira-zukuri tantō, slightly sunobi with a thick kasane, carrying the bold two-character mei near the tang-tip; the chisel on some is noted as broader and stronger than usual. The dated late blades of this register sign the longer Kikuchi-jū Kunitoki with Engen and Shōhei dates, and the published sources assign that long signature to the lower generations of the name. The second register is ōsuriage mumei katana, attributed to Enju Kunitoki and often fixed by a later appraisal: at first glance a ring-shaped wa-zori and a Kyoto air recall Rai, but the nagare in the ji, the shirake-utsuri and the subdued nioiguchi settle the attribution to Enju, and the overall level of the work narrows it to Kunitoki. Several of these carry a Hon'ami Kōsson appraisal inscription in gold, the smith's name set in kinzōgan or kinpun with his kaō.
Kunitoki's place is best read against his two neighbors. Against Rai, the parent, the difference is fixed: the published sources record the masame-lean, the whitish utsuri and the subdued nioiguchi as the points by which Enju parts from the Yamashiro line, and they note that the school is felt to be "somewhat weaker in ji and ha than Rai." Yet the kinship is close enough that one of his finest tantō is judged to show "a level of workmanship comparable to Rai Kunimitsu"[[c:5]], the Enju tells visible only on close reading. Against Kunimura, the founder, the difference is Kunitoki's own: his suguha breaks into ko-gunome and ko-midare far more freely than the founder's plainer straight temper, and his bōshi closes sugu to a ko-maru more often than the founder's larger ō-maru. Because the line shows so little individual variation, Kunitoki is taken as its representative hand and its most frequently surviving one, and a plain Rai suguha can in turn be mistaken at a glance for Enju. The Enju smiths were attached to the Kikuchi clan, loyal to the Southern Court, and the dated blades carry that history in their Southern-Court eras.
Kunitoki's standing is matched by a substantial designated record: thirty blades stand in the Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo tiers, six of them Tokubetsu Juyo, with one further work in the Important Cultural Property rank, and his work earns a high mark in the Tōkō Taikan. He is among the most heavily represented Enju hands on the official record. The provenance recorded against his blades reaches into the high households of late Edo: a tachi held by the Mito Tokugawa family and one by the Kishu Tokugawa family, a tantō now of Minatogawa Shrine, and a tantō known as a relic of Seikan'in-no-Miya, the imperial princess Kazunomiya[[c:6]], the figure of the late-Tokugawa marriage settlement, by way of the Kan'in-no-Miya house. One blade is locked in the Important Cultural Property tier and will never trade. Of the rest, the school's quiet suguha and the relative abundance of Kunitoki's survival mean that his Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo blades come to the serious collector from time to time, more readily than the rarest Kamakura masters but as designated heritage rather than ready stock; a fine signed ubu tachi or a broad signed tantō of his is a landmark when it appears, and most of the recorded record is held, not traded.
