Tomoshige is the founder and representative smith of the Fujishima school of Fujishima in Kaga province, a name carried by several generations from the end of Nanbokucho through Muromachi and on into the early-modern era. The earliest dated work found among them is a tanto of Oei 2 (1395), which the published sources call extremely valuable as the oldest date seen on any Tomoshige. The first generation comes down by tradition as a pupil of Rai Kunitoshi of Yamashiro, alternatively of Sanekage of his own province. One Juyo paper doubts both readings: looking at the tachi of Atsuta Shrine, thought to be his oldest work, it finds no stylistic tie to Rai Kunitoshi[[c:1]] and a chronology that cannot be reconciled with Sanekage, and judges from the make and the nakago finish that the line descends rather from the Yamato tradition. Another compares his manner to the Yamato Shikkake school, with something of Bizen as well. The Juyo papers find no surviving work they can place before the Nanbokucho period.
The recognition of Tomoshige lives in his jigane. He forges an itame that mixes in mokume and runs to nagare, standing somewhat open, the surface gathering ji-nie and chikei, and the steel carries a distinct blackish cast. The published record names exactly this as the school's chief point, that the jigane stands and tends dark[[c:2]]. Over that jigane he tempers a gunome midare into which box-shaped, pointed and angular teeth enter together with ko-notare, at times rising into a compound, multi-peaked midare. The NBTHK calls the feel of it a make in which Bizen temperament and Mino flavor are mixed[[c:3]]. The ashi run rather long and the whole is nie-laden. Sunagashi sweeps the ha, kinsuji enter, and small tobiyaki are scattered here and there. The boshi runs straight or midare-komi into a ko-maru and is often swept with hakikake.
The itame commonly stands and flows rather than tightening, and on the great spear it becomes a standing masame. The dark color belongs to the steel itself, and the published sources tie it directly to the northern provinces, writing of the Oei 2 tanto that the blackish cast of the metal shows the kantei point of northern-country work[[c:4]]. On several blades a faint whitish utsuri rises in the ji. The hamon answers with its own mix. Angular teeth are singled out as a point worth naming on one typical katana, and the nioiguchi sits at times in nie and at times in a deeper nioi.
The short blades and the dated pieces mark the edges of this manner. On the tanto the hand can quiet, and the published sources note that tanto with a narrow suguha and ko-nie are also seen; one later tanto, tempered in ko-notare with round-headed gunome and sunagashi, is compared to Naoe Shizu and to Sekishu Naotsuna, yet its standing, dark itame shows the character of northern work. The Oei 16 (1409) wakizashi leans further toward Yamato. It tempers a suguha base with small teeth and a yakizume-like boshi, and the NBTHK reads in it a Yamato temperament[[c:5]] while the dark color of the steel keeps the northern grain plainly shown[[c:6]]. As one of the few early-dated Tomoshige it is valued as reference material for his range. A signed tanto recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection adds a strongly uchizori hira-zukuri in flowing itame with a whitish tendency, a gunome midare with ko-notare and sunagashi heavy in the lower half, and a long-returning midare-komi boshi; Honma judged it good work no later than the early Muromachi period[[c:7]], the bonji on its face a clumsy later carving, probably to hide a flaw. The name is signed on every one of his fifteen blades with published commentary, fourteen of them on an ubu nakago, the four-character Fujishima Tomoshige most common, sometimes a two-character Tomoshige, and a long signature on one piece.
What sets Tomoshige apart is held in his own grounded traits. His midare recalls a Bizen make in its gunome and its long ashi, but the box-shaped and pointed teeth, the standing dark ji and the constant sunagashi give it his own character. One wakizashi is read as showing an Aoe air[[c:8]]. The teacher question is settled by elimination toward Yamato, the line bound neither to Rai Kunitoshi in style nor to Sanekage in date. He stands at the head of the Fujishima manner of Kaga, and the name continues for generations on the same fixed character of dark standing ji and box-and-pointed midare, the work that survives in greatest number being of the Muromachi period.
Fourteen of his blades stand in the Juyo tier, and Fujishiro rates the smith Chu-jo saku. His finest single work is a great spear, the o-mi-yari signed Fujishima Tomoshige and carved with a sanko-ken and the deity-name Myoken Daibosatsu. The NBTHK judges that no spear of the school or the name is likely to surpass it, and that it is one of the representative famous spears of its age[[c:9]]. Surviving naginata by him are noted as rare. Recorded provenance is thin: an Oei-period katana descended in the Inaba house during the Edo period, with a gold nashiji tachi mounting, and the signed tanto in Honma's inventory. No National Treasure or Important Cultural Property stands under his name. His Juyo blades are mostly held rather than traded, so that a Juyo Tomoshige is an uncommon encounter, though not beyond the reach of a patient collector of northern work.
