The blades gathered under the Bungo name reach back to the ko-kaji working on Kyūshū from the close of the Heian period, and the setsumei trace two distinct strands rather than a single continuous house. The earliest hands belong to the classical Kyūshū group (Kyūshū koten-ha): Yukihira (行平) of Bungo, his associate the Mount Hiko monk Sadahide (定秀), and the still older Chōen (長円), whose orikaeshi-mei katana the records identify with the Minamoto treasure tachi Usugoromo and place no later than the time of Yukihira. Yukihira is the center of gravity, dated by an extant Genkyū 2 (1205) tachi to the early Kamakura period and transmitted both as a goban kaji serving the retired Emperor Go-Toba and as either teacher or pupil of Sadahide; the sources leave that relationship unsettled. A signed Kamisoku (神息) tachi enters the group on the strength of workmanship close to Yukihira's, and a Sadahide ko-tachi extends the strand into well-recorded examples. Far removed in time stands the Muromachi material: a Norisada (則貞) katana of Kutsunami-gō in Naoiri District, dated Hōtoku 3 (1451), which the setsumei explicitly tie to the Takada lineage. Between the two strands the records draw a thread through Chikushi Masatsune (筑紫正恒), transmitted in the reference works as Yukihira's grandson.

The classical strand shares a tight vocabulary. The sugata is slender with a ko-kissaki, high koshizori, and pronounced funbari, an archaic tachi form that the entries read as not descending beyond the early Kamakura. The jigane is a soft, nettori (viscous) itame with a nagare tendency, often with a whitish cast and a suggestion of utsuri; ji-nie and fine chikei adhere. The hamon is suguha-based, mixed with ko-midare and ko-gunome, carrying ko-ashi and ko-nie, with faint kinsuji and occasional yubashiri; the recurring marks are a nioiguchi tending toward urumi (moist and soft) and a yakiotoshi where the temper drops above the machi. The setsumei tie these traits to the most archaic manner of the Shōsōin swords and find them echoed in other early Kyūshū work such as Ko-Hōki and Ko-Naminohira. Sadahide's blades are described as built in Yukihira's mold, down to the urumi nioiguchi. The Muromachi Norisada diverges: a longer katana with added sakizori and a chū-kissaki, chū-suguha with small gunome and a faint standing utsuri, its dekiguchi subdued (jimi) rather than archaic.

Recognition of the classical hands turns on a cluster of habits the records name as Yukihira's own. He signs the haura, the side worn inward, against the practice of his period, a placement the entries compare to Sanjō Munechika and the Ko-Aoe line. His blades frequently bear relief (ukibori) carvings set in hi at the koshi-moto: kurikara, bonji, Jizō Bosatsu, cherry blossoms, and the "pine-devouring crane" (matsukui-zuru), a carving repertoire the sources say later Bungo work inherited. The early oshigata literature, citing the Kanchi-in Meizukushi, records that forgeries existed from Kamakura and warns that crude mei are the genuine ones. Named pieces carry the standing: the Usugoromo tachi, bestowed by Tokugawa Tsunayoshi on Honjō Suketoshi and carrying Hon'ami Kōchū origami; Yukihira tachi with aoi-crest mountings and Hon'ami Kōon papers; a Sadahide tachi received by the Mōri house from Emperor Go-Mizunoo. The Muromachi entries close the picture by marking the Norisada blade as documentary material for the scarcely studied Kutsunami smiths and their Takada affinity, holding the two Bungo strands apart as the blades themselves do.