A calm, lustrous steel is the first thing the connoisseur's eye is meant to settle on with the school: a finely forged (小板目) worked until it is dense and refined, over which the lies thickly in minute particles, fine (地景) enter, and a rises in the . This bright, refined , the surface the trade reads as - when its softer, looser patches intrude, is the constant beneath every manner the house produced. The school took shape in Kyoto in the mid- period around the workshop of Kuniyuki (來國行), the de facto founder of the line, whose chronology is reckoned from the Koan 1 (1278) of his transmitted son. From Kuniyuki the Yamashiro- tradition of late was built, carried by Niji Kunitoshi, the two-character 國俊, traditionally his son and the nearest of the house to his hand; by the three-character Kunitoshi, the first to crown his name with the character , a practice all who followed took from him; and onward through Kunimitsu (來國光), Kunitsugu (來國次) and the lesser names Kunizane, Tomokuni, Kunihide and Mitsukane into the early period. Whether the two Kunitoshi are one smith or two remains the classic open question of the school, argued from a span of dated work running about forty years from Koan 1 to Genko 1 (1321).
What unites the house is a temper of restraint and activity at once, its life carried in the rather than in the height of the pattern. Against Kuniyuki's wide, -toned and against the refined chu- or of the three-character line, the smiths mix , and small ; and enter densely, often as the Kyoto-style kyo- (京逆足) that slants back toward the , the opposite of the direction; the runs deep and bright, attaches thickly, and and move through the body of the . The is the school's most misjudged trait: a drawn out by , the brushed of the point continuing the work of the below, often falling into with a pointing tip. along the back recurs often enough that the records name it a habit of the hand, and carving in the groove, or with an added side , is a practice the texts call peculiar to work. The strength of the within the , the rising as a , and the kyo- are precisely the marks that part Niji Kunitoshi's -dominant , which the old books said resembles the , from the itself. Where the early masters keep this calm Kyoto register, the late line bends toward -: Kunitsugu, counted among the Ten Brilliant Pupils of Masamune and named -, shows the strongest of and in the whole school, a mixed with the earlier never had.
For a collector the house style is the recognition tool. An unsigned, settles to when the packed , the fine over it, the standing and the kyo- read together; the named smith is then fixed by degree. Niji Kunitoshi and the three-character Kunitoshi, both graded Sai-jo by Fujishiro, anchor the canon, the latter unusually approachable because his signed work is abundant and roughly half of it , late Yamashiro work in its purest form. Kunimitsu, the most prolific and most versatile of the house, gives the impression of surpassing his father in force; Kunitsugu, graded Jo-jo , is the -facing edge whose signed are scarce. Mitsukane, the Chudo who withdrew to forge on Mt. Hiei, stands apart as the strong pole, his laid thicker than Kunitoshi's or Kunimitsu's and likened upward to Yoshimitsu; the smaller Kunizane, Tomokuni and Kunihide carry the a step into the . The provenance roll is of the first rank, with blades worn by Ieyasu and held beside the Honjo Masamune, such as the Aizen Kunitoshi, the Torikai Kunitsugu and the -Mitsukane, and descent through the Owari and Kishu Tokugawa, the Maeda, Uesugi and Shimazu houses. Much sits locked as National Treasure and patrimony, yet the tier of the major names, and the whole record of the minor hands, remains a goal a serious collector can actually reach.