Unju, whose name is read variously as Unshige and Kumoshige, was the third-generation hand of the Bizen Ukai group, the smiths of Ukan-shō whose signatures begin with the character for cloud and who are therefore called the Unrui, the cloud group. The single dated Tokubetsu Jūyō tachi, inscribed Jōji 7 in the second month of 1368, fixes him squarely in the mid-Nanbokuchō, succeeding the line's founder Unshō and his successor Unji. The published sources set the group apart from everything around it: their manner, they write, differs from the mainstream Osafune work of the day and stands instead close to the Yamashiro Rai school and the Bitchū Aoe school, so that within an essentially Bizen character there is mixed the flavor of Kyoto Rai and of Bitchū Aoe, a temperament strong enough that they call the cloud group plainly the most unusual presence among Bizen swords. The Meikan records Unju as a son of the second Unshō, and dated work survives bearing the Bunwa, Jōji and Ōan eras.

His characteristic hand is the opposite of the flamboyant clove-flower for which mid-Nanbokuchō Osafune is known. Unju's forte is the suguha and the suguha-toned line, shallowly notare, on which ride ko-gunome, ko-chōji and a small midare, with ashi and yō entering and ko-nie adhering. What lifts that quiet edge out of plain Bizen is the nie activity worked through it: sunagashi and kinsuji run frequently in the ha, with hotsure, kuichigai-ba and uchi-noke, an activity foreign to the nioi-based Osafune chōji and proper instead to the Rai and Yamato strains the sources attach to his group. On the Jōji 7 tachi the temper crowds in hotsure, kuichigai-ba, uchi-noke, nijūba and yubashiri, with deep nioi and vigorous nie, some of it coarse. The bōshi is a sugu ko-maru or, on the Yamato-cast pieces, a yakizume sweep.

The jigane is where the group's Kyoto leaning shows most plainly. Unju forges an itame, frequently mixed with mokume and standing somewhat, with ji-nie well applied and chikei entering, and over it a faint utsuri rather than the bright midare-utsuri of standard Bizen. The published sources note that the cloud group's steel differs from other contemporary Bizen in its mokume cast, its ji-nie and its scant utsuri, the inheritance of a line that, in the persons of Unshō and Unji, is said to have gone up to Kyoto to train and afterward served Retired Emperor Go-Daigo. On the most Yamato-leaning blades the forging runs almost entirely into masame, the edge breaks into kuichigai-ba and hotsure, and the bōshi finishes yakizume, a strain the published sources read as Yamato workmanship within an otherwise Bizen body.

He survives in two faces. The first is the small group of ubu, signed pieces, several carrying a written-down date: the Jōji 7 tachi, a Jōji 6 tantō, a Bunwa tachi, a Jōji naginata. On these the deep, thickly built tang on the edge side, the steeply angled file marks, the reverse-chisel emphasis of the signature characters, and above all the practice of cutting the date straight down beneath the long signature are, the sources say, features that answer entirely to Aoe practice, "matters entirely in accord with Aoe work"[[c:1]]. The second face, far the larger, is the body of ō-suriage mumei katana attributed to him, broad Nanbokuchō blades with shallow sori and extended points, the silhouette of greatly shortened ōdachi. On these the published commentary accepts the traditional attribution from period and lineage, observing that the rounded bōshi and the suguha with small chōji-ashi are points of appreciation of the cloud group, "the things to look for in Unrui"[[c:2]], rather than a feature unique to Unju alone.

What sets Unju apart is exactly what the judges name when they reach for a comparison. His ji and ha are repeatedly said to be of a kind that at a glance could be taken for Aoe, "a workmanship that, at first sight, could be mistaken for Aoe"[[c:3]], and his group is placed close to the Yamashiro Rai school, so that the dated tantō's quiet suguha over a tight, faintly reflective jigane reads almost as a Bitchū piece until the Bizen ji-nie and the cloud-group signature settle it. The sources sum the whole effect in a single phrase: that within a Bizen temperament are mixed the airs of Kyoto Rai and Bitchū Aoe, "an individuality so strong it is distinctive among Bizen works"[[c:4]]. He stands at the third remove from the Kyoto-trained founders, carrying their restrained idiom forward while the broadening shapes and deepening nie of his own generation, touched by the transmitted Sōshū manner, press it toward the Nanbokuchō.

For the collector Unju is a rare and individual name rather than a flowing supply. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs instead through a single Tokubetsu Jūyō, a body of Jūyō, and three prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin, some fifty-seven blades across the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers and sixty designated works on record in all. Only thirteen of these are signed, and dated signed work is rarer still, which is why the published sources prize the inscribed pieces for their documentary value as much as their quality. His blades are preserved in long-held collections and institutions, among them the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures; one naginata-naoshi wakizashi carries a handachi mounting said to descend in the Date family, and the prewar designations passed through the Nanbu and Iwasaki houses. Because almost none can ever trade, and because his mumei katana surface only seldom and his signed and dated pieces seldomer, a privately held Unju is a notable thing for a collector to encounter, a document of the most Kyoto-inflected corner of Bizen.

Unju, whose name is read variously as Unshige and Kumoshige, was the third-generation hand of the Bizen Ukai group, the smiths of Ukan-shō whose signatures begin with the character for cloud and who are therefore called the Unrui, the cloud group. The single dated Tokubetsu Jūyō tachi, inscribed Jōji 7 in the second month of 1368, fixes him squarely in the mid-Nanbokuchō, succeeding the line's founder Unshō and his successor Unji. The published sources set the group apart from everything around it: their manner, they write, differs from the mainstream Osafune work of the day and stands instead close to the Yamashiro Rai school and the Bitchū Aoe school, so that within an essentially Bizen character there is mixed the flavor of Kyoto Rai and of Bitchū Aoe, a temperament strong enough that they call the cloud group plainly the most unusual presence among Bizen swords. The Meikan records Unju as a son of the second Unshō, and dated work survives bearing the Bunwa, Jōji and Ōan eras.

His characteristic hand is the opposite of the flamboyant clove-flower for which mid-Nanbokuchō Osafune is known. Unju's forte is the suguha and the suguha-toned line, shallowly notare, on which ride ko-gunome, ko-chōji and a small midare, with ashi and yō entering and ko-nie adhering. What lifts that quiet edge out of plain Bizen is the nie activity worked through it: sunagashi and kinsuji run frequently in the ha, with hotsure, kuichigai-ba and uchi-noke, an activity foreign to the nioi-based Osafune chōji and proper instead to the Rai and Yamato strains the sources attach to his group. On the Jōji 7 tachi the temper crowds in hotsure, kuichigai-ba, uchi-noke, nijūba and yubashiri, with deep nioi and vigorous nie, some of it coarse. The bōshi is a sugu ko-maru or, on the Yamato-cast pieces, a yakizume sweep.

The jigane is where the group's Kyoto leaning shows most plainly. Unju forges an itame, frequently mixed with mokume and standing somewhat, with ji-nie well applied and chikei entering, and over it a faint utsuri rather than the bright midare-utsuri of standard Bizen. The published sources note that the cloud group's steel differs from other contemporary Bizen in its mokume cast, its ji-nie and its scant utsuri, the inheritance of a line that, in the persons of Unshō and Unji, is said to have gone up to Kyoto to train and afterward served Retired Emperor Go-Daigo. On the most Yamato-leaning blades the forging runs almost entirely into masame, the edge breaks into kuichigai-ba and hotsure, and the bōshi finishes yakizume, a strain the published sources read as Yamato workmanship within an otherwise Bizen body.

He survives in two faces. The first is the small group of ubu, signed pieces, several carrying a written-down date: the Jōji 7 tachi, a Jōji 6 tantō, a Bunwa tachi, a Jōji naginata. On these the deep, thickly built tang on the edge side, the steeply angled file marks, the reverse-chisel emphasis of the signature characters, and above all the practice of cutting the date straight down beneath the long signature are, the sources say, features that answer entirely to Aoe practice, "matters entirely in accord with Aoe work"[[c:1]]. The second face, far the larger, is the body of ō-suriage mumei katana attributed to him, broad Nanbokuchō blades with shallow sori and extended points, the silhouette of greatly shortened ōdachi. On these the published commentary accepts the traditional attribution from period and lineage, observing that the rounded bōshi and the suguha with small chōji-ashi are points of appreciation of the cloud group, "the things to look for in Unrui"[[c:2]], rather than a feature unique to Unju alone.

What sets Unju apart is exactly what the judges name when they reach for a comparison. His ji and ha are repeatedly said to be of a kind that at a glance could be taken for Aoe, "a workmanship that, at first sight, could be mistaken for Aoe"[[c:3]], and his group is placed close to the Yamashiro Rai school, so that the dated tantō's quiet suguha over a tight, faintly reflective jigane reads almost as a Bitchū piece until the Bizen ji-nie and the cloud-group signature settle it. The sources sum the whole effect in a single phrase: that within a Bizen temperament are mixed the airs of Kyoto Rai and Bitchū Aoe, "an individuality so strong it is distinctive among Bizen works"[[c:4]]. He stands at the third remove from the Kyoto-trained founders, carrying their restrained idiom forward while the broadening shapes and deepening nie of his own generation, touched by the transmitted Sōshū manner, press it toward the Nanbokuchō.

For the collector Unju is a rare and individual name rather than a flowing supply. Fujishiro grades him Jō-jō saku. He has no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; his record runs instead through a single Tokubetsu Jūyō, a body of Jūyō, and three prewar Jūyō Bijutsuhin, some fifty-seven blades across the Tokubetsu Jūyō and Jūyō tiers and sixty designated works on record in all. Only thirteen of these are signed, and dated signed work is rarer still, which is why the published sources prize the inscribed pieces for their documentary value as much as their quality. His blades are preserved in long-held collections and institutions, among them the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures; one naginata-naoshi wakizashi carries a handachi mounting said to descend in the Date family, and the prewar designations passed through the Nanbu and Iwasaki houses. Because almost none can ever trade, and because his mumei katana surface only seldom and his signed and dated pieces seldomer, a privately held Unju is a notable thing for a collector to encounter, a document of the most Kyoto-inflected corner of Bizen.