The Hoan school takes its name from its founder Hoan (法安), whose personal name was Kawaguchi Saburuemon, an arms-smith (bugu-kaji) active in Kiyosu, Owari Province, from the late into the period. Originally an armorer by trade, Hoan entered the service of the Asano family as a retained craftsman, residing successively at Kofu in Province and at Wakayama in Province before his death on the twentieth day of the fifth month of Keicho 18 (1613). His posthumous Buddhist name was Honpoin Soan Nisshin Koji. The consistently situate Hoan alongside the Owari makers Yamakichi and Nobuie, noting that "their styles share certain common features." Within this triad, Hoan is distinguished as "somewhat more technical in execution" than Nobuie and "a step more polished and sophisticated" than Yamakichi. Following Hoan's death, his son-in-law Hisatsugu relocated to Hiroshima in Aki Province during the Genna era in connection with the Asano family's transfer of fief, establishing the Hiroshima branch of the lineage; the family cemetery remains at Kokuzen- Temple in that city.
Hoan's plate iron was celebrated for its extraordinary toughness, "to the extent that it was also known by the epithet uwabami-tetsu" ("great-serpent iron"). Across the designated corpus, this iron is described as possessing a distinctive "viscous" () and tenacious character, with the forged texture (-) emerging "here and there with lively animation" and (iron bones) appearing prominently at the surface. His hallmark technique was -kusarashi — a heat-induced corrosion method that produces "abstruse and subtle variations over the flat ground, deepening the work's elegant flavor." This technique was deployed both for surface treatment across the and for the depiction of figural subjects, as in the long-eared rabbit rendered at the rim of one designated . Hoan's repertoire further embraced kuruma- (wheel openwork), amida-yasuri file-mark patterning employed as a deliberate design element, (hammered ground), and (raised carving). The interplay of these methods — the "balance between the wheel and the amida-yasuri" — is singled out in the as "especially intriguing."
The Hoan school occupies a position of high regard within the Owari iron- tradition. The observes that "because there exist fine examples of kuruma-, the name Hoan is held in high regard," and the designated works consistently display what the examiners characterize as a unique artistic world realized within a single . The boldly constructed forms — thick dote-mimi rims, solidly built , and weighty iron plates — convey unmistakable power, while the -kusarashi surfaces and varied rim treatments contribute what the describe as "profound, evocative charm" and "refined elegance." Across subjects ranging from Buddhist invocations (rokuji myogo, shichiji no daimoku) to wheel openwork and figural design, Hoan's oeuvre demonstrates a synthesis of martial robustness and decorative sophistication that remains, in the words of the examiners, "a world uniquely characteristic of Hoan."