Kantei
A rusted tang with two holes and the start of the blade, with the temper line rising from the machi.

Tokyo National Museum, via ColBase · ColBase terms of use

Osafune · Nanbokuchō · Masamune jūtetsu

Life and times

A smith of a minor branch of Osafune who worked in the midst of the war between the two courts and is counted, for his style, among the pupils of Masamune.

On this page
  1. His lineage
  2. His times
  3. What tradition says

His lineage

  • His branch begins with 真長 (Sanenaga), son of Mitsutada, and continues with 光長 (Mitsunaga) and with him: it is not the main line of Osafune, that of Mitsutada, Nagamitsu, Kagemitsu and Kanemitsu.
  • The treatise Kokon Meizukushi, in its Osafune genealogy, gives him Mitsunaga as father and Sanenaga as grandfather, and the same to his elder brother, 長重 (Chōjū); the NBTHK finds this convincing because of the likeness of the signatures.
  • His pupils are said to include 兼長 (Kanenaga), 長守 (Nagamori) and 守長 (Morinaga).
  • He is counted among the “four heavenly kings of Osafune” (Osafune Shitennō).

His times

  • The NBTHK dates his work from Jōwa 6 (1350) to Kōryaku 2 (1380): thirty years. The tantō of the Tokyo National Museum, of 27.6 cm, bears the date Shōhei 17 (1362).
  • In the first half of the Nanbokuchō, his group dated with the eras of the Southern court, and in the second with those of the Northern, depending on who controlled Bizen; Kanemitsu always used the Northern ones.
  • Ogasawara Nobuo points out that his dates closely follow those of Yamana Tokiuji, military governor of Hōki.

What tradition says

  • For his style he is counted among the ten pupils of Masamune (Masamune jūtetsu); the Nihon Jinmei Daijiten repeats it. His dates mean he cannot have been a direct pupil.
  • The old authorities said that Kanemitsu was the plum tree and Chōgi the cherry tree: Kanemitsu, more serene, is of Sagami only in shape; Chōgi is so in shape and in temper.