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Kantei keys
- Sugata. The shapes of Kan'ei to Shōho: according to the NBTHK, more wakizashi in shinogi-zukuri than katana, many of them wide and with a long point; also wide, long hira-zukuri, and yari and naginata with curvature. The 1642 katana is shinogi-zukuri, with the back in ihori-mune, a little over 2 shaku 4 sun 4 bu (about 74 cm) and about 7 bu (2.1 cm) of curvature.
- Jihada. Tight ko-itame, with dense ji-nie and fine chikei. Japanese Wikipedia sums it up as a ko-mokume jigane.
- Hamon. A long yakidashi that widens upwards and a wide temper, which often rises into the shinogi-ji, with long, very prominent chōji. On the 1642 katana, chōji with gunome, ko-gunome, jūka-chōji and fist-shaped chōji (kobushi), ashi and yō, a dense nioiguchi of ko-nie, fine kinsuji, sunagashi, tama-yaki and muneyaki.
- Bōshi. With a small round tip (komaru), with a wide temper; on the 1642 katana, somewhat wide and straight.
- Nakago and mei. A narrow tip in kurijiri, with the edge side well raised (ha-agari), and ō-sujichigai file marks; signature 河内守藤原国助 (Kawachi no Kami Fujiwara Kunisuke).
His two manners
According to the NBTHK, his early work resembles that of Echigo no Kami Kunitomo: wide, with gunome and togari-ba, more in wakizashi than in katana. For the NBTHK, his best period is the second half of his career. Many of his tempers, and of Kunisada’s, have Kunitomo’s notare and, at times, the square gunome (hako-ba) of the Kunihiro school.
How to tell him apart
- From Kunisada. In Kunisuke the yakidashi widens upwards, the whole temper is wider, the chōji more marked and the bōshi wider; in Kunisada the yakidashi keeps almost the same width, the chōji are round and small, the gunome tight, and there are usually muneyaki and tobiyaki from the cutting zone to the point.
- From the Naka-Kawachi. The second groups several chōji into a cluster, with square gunome forming fists and, between fist and fist, a group of gunome like a normal chōji, on Kanbun-shintō shapes. His early work resembles that of the first; the 1642 katana already has a fist-shaped chōji. The NBTHK records the view that some of those early blades could be by the first in his last period.
Markus Sesko credits the second with introducing the kobushigata-chōji and looks for precedents in the Sue-Bizen Katsumitsu and Sukesada and in the Taira-Takada school.