Norinari is a Bizen smith of the Fukuoka Ichimonji school, placed by tradition around the Kenchō era of the early-to-mid Kamakura period. He is one of the rarest names the school records: of his signed work the published sources observe that extant examples are extremely few, and that the number of securely authenticated signed tachi examined to date amounts to scarcely four. The signature reading 則成 is itself a problem of the books. The meikan enter the name across three Ichimonji-related lines, the Fukuoka Ichimonji, the Yoshioka Ichimonji and Osafune; the examined blades, however, are appraised as the work of the Fukuoka man active around Kenchō, and the later designations increasingly read him as Ko-Ichimonji, the early-Kamakura wing of the school whose work, in the words of the published commentary, keeps the old colour of Bizen. He stands at the threshold between Ko-Bizen and the great flowering of Fukuoka Ichimonji under Norimune, Sukezane and Yoshifusa.
His characteristic hand is a suguha-based irregular temper that has not yet opened into the school's full clove-flower. Over the hamon the published sources describe a mixture of chōji, ko-chōji, ko-gunome and ko-midare that nonetheless holds to a suguha foundation, with ashi and yō entering densely, ko-nie well adhered, the nioiguchi tight or soft, and kinsuji and sunagashi running through the lower half. The tell is where the cloves gather. The judges note that around the koshimoto the chōji are conspicuous[[c:1]], and that just here the edge takes on a fresher note than the old province allows, so that in this point the distinctive character of the Ko-Ichimonji wing is clearly displayed[[c:2]]. It is the smallest of advances on Ko-Bizen, but the published commentary reads it as the nascent emergence of the full Ichimonji to come[[c:3]].
The jigane is the steadier half of the picture and the more obviously Bizen. His tachi are forged in itame, generally well-packed and at times mixed with mokume, the grain standing a little and chikei entering where the forging opens; over it lies a fine ji-nie, on the slender pieces a dust-fine ji-nie (ji-nie mijin), and a midare-utsuri that stands out clearly on the signed work. On a tachi of around the Kenchō era the reflection can fall faint and the construction turn wholly to nioi-deki, the nioiguchi gentle, demonstrating the virtues of Bizen steel without the nie of the later school. The bōshi follows the quiet manner: a shallow notare turning in a ko-maru, or running straight to a yakitsume.
His few blades divide into two grades of the one manner. The slender signed tachi, several of them suriage yet keeping a high sori and koshizori and ending in a ko-kissaki, carry the suguha-based, archaic register at its most refined; the published sources call these of an older tachi-sugata than the mid-Kamakura type, and value them for the way the chōji about the waist lift them past Ko-Bizen. A second, showier grade widens the yakihaba: on a standard-width tachi, ubu or only slightly shortened and keeping its funbari, the temper runs as gunome mixed with chōji, in places becoming suguha-like, with round-topped gunome and saka-ashi set in here and there. Of one such Tokubetsu Jūyō tachi the published commentary judges the workmanship excellent and the blade a valuable example for understanding the smith's high level of ability and the scope of his work.
What sets Norinari apart his neighbours name precisely. From the brilliant chōji-midare of the mid- to late-Kamakura Ichimonji he is held apart, his manner read as one that differs from the splendid mid-Kamakura style[[c:4]] and in which the character of Ko-Bizen is strongly preserved in both shape and the workmanship of ji and ha[[c:5]]. From the plainer Ko-Bizen smiths he is held apart by the gathering of chōji on his edge and the brightness of his midare-utsuri. On one shortened tachi the older commentary granted only that there was no doubt it was the work of a superior Bizen smith[[c:6]] while adding that its precise lineage warranted further examination[[c:7]], a caution that the later attribution to Fukuoka Ichimonji around Kenchō has since refined rather than overturned. He is, in the end, a documentary figure: the quiet root from which the most brilliant of the Bizen traditions grew.
For the collector he is a scarce early name rather than a market presence. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his designated record runs instead through the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō ranks, with a handful of pieces, and through the prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin, one of which descended in the Maeda family of Kaga. The published sources value each signed blade for exactly what it documents, calling it one of Norinari's few extant signed works, of high value as reference material[[c:8]]. With securely signed tachi numbering only about four, a privately held example is among the rarer encounters in the Bizen field, coming to light from a long-held collection only seldom and with patience, and prized when it does as a witness to how the Ichimonji began.
