Chogi (長義) was the leading Bizen smith of the Nanbokucho age, a master whom the published sources name in the same breath as Kanemitsu as one who, together with Kanemitsu, displayed outstanding skill[[c:1]] among the many Bizen smiths of the period grouped under the appellation Soden-Bizen. One tradition transmits him as a descendant of the Osafune mainline smith Sanenaga, and the dated blades that survive run from the Jowa years through Koryaku, so his career sits squarely in the high Nanbokucho decades of Enbun and Joji. The sources draw a clear line between two faces of his work, one in which nioi prevails and one in which the nie of the jigane and hamon runs strong, and it is the second of these that earned him the phrase repeated again and again across his papers, that of all Bizen smiths Chogi is the one whose work departs furthest from Bizen[[c:2]].
The first thing to look for is not a borrowed resemblance but his own typical hand. Over a base of notare he tempers a bold, varied midare in which gunome, choji, angular ha and pointed togari elements crowd together, and at intervals two gunome lean head to head into an ear shape, the mimigata that the sources single out as the form to watch for in his work. On the Shotoku wakizashi the judges write that the notare-toned hamon mixing ear-shaped ha is this smith's typical work[[c:3]], and on a signed tanto they describe the notare ha whose head splits in two into the ear-shaped ha[[c:4]]. This is the surest Chogi tell, more reliable than any single famous comparison, because it recurs across signed and attributed blades alike and belongs to no other hand in quite this form.
Within the temper the activity is profuse and Soshu in feeling. Ashi and yo enter freely, the nie gathers thick and at times clustered, kinsuji and sunagashi run through the ha, and tobiyaki and yubashiri drift above it, so that the nioiguchi is now bright, now slightly subdued. The judges note that in his nie-strong work the Soshu manner is emphasized even more than in Kanemitsu, which is precisely why the old saying about the most un-Bizen of Bizen smiths attaches to him. Yet the hamon never loses its Bizen footing, and the choji and mountain-shaped clusters keep the reading anchored in the province.
The jigane answers the temper. The itame stands, often a touch hada-tatsu, carries thick ji-nie and abundant well-entering chikei, and beneath the Soshu fire a midare-utsuri rises, faint on some blades and vivid on others. It is this doubling, Soshu nie worked into a jigane that still throws a Bizen utsuri, that lets a Chogi be read at sight, and the sources say plainly that his forging lays thick ji-nie over itame and mixes in chikei. The boshi follows the disorder of the ha. It runs midare-komi, often turning pointed in togari, with hakikake sweeping the tip and at times a thrusting-up tsukiage before a short ko-maru turn-back, a strong and restless point that the judges repeatedly single out for its force.
The shape is the grand Nanbokucho figure, broad in the mihaba with little taper from base to tip, shallow in the sori and extended into an o-kissaki, imposing and o-buri. Most of his surviving blades are osuriage-mumei o-dachi later shortened, their bearing still vividly of the Enbun and Joji peak, and among the signed work are fine nie-rich tanto and a dated tanto of Oan. The most celebrated piece is the Yamanbagiri Chogi, an Important Cultural Property and the very blade that Horikawa Kunihiro famously copied, though that history comes from outside the published sources rather than from the catalog records themselves.
For the collector Chogi is, by the measure of a name this great, comparatively within reach. Fujishiro grades him Sai-jo saku, and he holds no National Treasure, but five of his blades are Important Cultural Properties and a strong body of his work carries Tokubetsu Juyo and Juyo papers, with thirty-two at the Tokubetsu Juyo tier. The provenance is illustrious: blades descend through the Mito Tokugawa and Kishu Tokugawa houses, one passed through the Hori family of the Iida domain in Shinano and the collection of Ito Miyoji. Held across public institutions and long-private hands, a Chogi surfaces only occasionally, and is a major acquisition whenever it does.
