Oku Motohira, common name Oku Kozaemon, was the eldest son and heir of Oku Motonao, born in Enkyo 1 (1744). He learned forging from his father and earned early a reputation for surpassing his teacher, his work appearing from the Meiwa era and rising sharply in volume from about An'ei 8 to 9. The published sources place him by a single recurring pairing that has held ever since: with Hoki no Kami Masayuki he is acclaimed as one of the soheki, the twin pillars of Satsuma shinshinto[[c:1]], eleven years Masayuki's junior. His signature itself maps his career. In his An'ei and early Tenmei years he cut Satsuyoshi Motohira; from Tenmei 5 he cut Satsuhan-shin Oku Motohira; and after receiving the title Yamato no Kami in Kansei 1 (1789) he most often cut the long Oku Yamato no Kami Taira Ason Motohira[[c:2]]. His dates are cut with marked economy, the era year with its zodiac sign and, in place of month and day, mostly only the season, spring or autumn, and the published sources add that "nearly all are cut as tachi-mei"[[c:3]], a habit worth attending to. He worked into extreme old age, with a dated and age-inscribed piece from the very year of his death, Bunsei 9 (1826), at eighty-three.
His characteristic hand is a broad, imposing katana the sources name his favored Soshu-den. The body is wide in mihaba with ample hiraniku and an extended chu-kissaki, and the temper is a shallow notare-toned gunome-midare into which he sets pointed togariba, at times opened at the base, sometimes widening to o-gunome. The nioi is deep and the nie thick and strong with ara-nie mixed, and through the ha run frequent sunagashi and long kinsuji, the streaming Satsuma nie-lines the published sources name imozuru, the yam-vine, recording on one katana that the kinsuji enter thick to show "vine-like nie-lines"[[c:4]]. The pointed teeth and the running vine are the spine of his recognition, a Soshu-den read in coarse nie rather than in clove-flower.
The jigane is the constant beneath. It is a well-forged itame, often a tightly packed ko-itame with mixed nagare, carrying thick ji-nie and chikei, on his finest pieces bright and clear. Over it the boshi runs in midare-komi or straight, turning back in ko-maru, the point swept with hakikake and on his most vigorous work flaring to a flame-like kaen cast. There is one feature the published sources single out as a kantei point on the tang itself: the nakago is almost always ubu, narrowed toward the tip in a funagata-like manner to a sword-shaped kengyo point, a form they note did not change throughout his life, the long signature cut boldly with a thick chisel and frequently carrying his age.
His record carries two registers, and the quieter one is not confined to his youth. The earliest work, dated through the An'ei years and into early Tenmei, shows a calmer manner before the full Soshu hand emerges: a shallow notare-toned temper, at times a wide suguha undulating into gentle notare, deep in nioi with well-attached nie and a bright clear nioiguchi. The sources read one Tenmei 5 piece as a Shinkai-like shallow notare of his earlier phase and a Tenmei 2 piece as "a Shinkai manner of the Osaka shinto"[[c:5]]. The same manner returns after he took the title Yamato no Kami. A katana dated Kansei 8 tempers a suguha-chō undulating shallowly, with sunagashi and kinsuji and a clear nioiguchi, and the sources call it "one manner in which he excelled, the suguha-chō"[[c:6]], probably modelled on Inoue Shinkai of Osaka, adding that a touch of pointed togariba somewhere in the temper is one of its points. Pieces of Kansei 6 and Kansei 9 likewise run on a suguha base. One Kansei 5 katana stands apart: an itame flowing almost to masame under a narrow suguha, which the sources read as "Yamato-den, suguha on masame"[[c:7]]. A tachi of Kansei 8, his fifty-eighth year, recorded in Honma's inventory of the Imperial collection, goes the same way. Its itame runs almost to masame under a chu-suguha-toned notare, and the sources call it a very quiet work for him, modelled on a Yamato-den tachi, its sayagaki reading "copy of Kanenaga"[[c:8]]. These two are the exceptions to the deep-nioi gunome with coarse nie of his usual work. Apart from them, the forging beneath, the tight ji-nie itame, is the steel he carries into his prime, so the suguha is the same hand held quieter rather than a separate school. He also forged often with his younger brothers Mototake and Motoyasu, who signed independently only rarely and whose skill the sources hold below his; joint signatures of two or three of the brothers survive and are themselves called precious, the workmanship on them no different from his sole-signed blades.
What sets him within his province is exactly the pairing the judges name and the manner they return to. He is read first against his elder townsman Masayuki, the two held together as the twin pillars of Satsuma shinshinto, and the published sources keep returning to the same description of him: his swords are generally, in their words, "broad in body and imposing"[[c:9]], excelling in gunome-midare with much coarse nie in a flamboyant style, and he is the smith they say "excelled in the Soshu-den"[[c:10]]. His bright deep-nioi gunome with pointed togariba, his running imozuru and his flaring kaen boshi are the grounded traits that set him apart, not a borrowed comparison. He stands at the head of the Oku line, the hand by which a Satsuma shinshinto blade of his descent is read.
For the collector he is one of the great names of late Satsuma, and Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record on the modern designation tiers runs through the Juyo rank, where thirty-eight of his works are held, almost all ubu and signed across a working life from An'ei to his death year, with one carrying the provenance of the Matsue Matsudaira family. Most designated blades, including those in private hands, are held rather than traded, and a fine signed Motohira of his characteristic Soshu-den comes to market only from time to time and with patience, a substantial thing for a collector to encounter when it does. His work is, comparatively, among the more findable of the first-rank shinshinto masters, more so than the locked heritage of the older traditions, but a dated, age-inscribed katana in his full vigorous manner remains a landmark acquisition, a document of how the Satsuma school reached its late summit.
