Kawashima Kazuki (川島一城)

In short

What we know. Kawashima Kazuki is a member of the Zen Nihon Tōshōkai (全日本刀匠会), the swordsmiths’ association, and enters the NBTHK’s 現代刀職展 (Gendai Tōshokuten): in 2025 he placed 入選七席 (nyūsen shichiseki), seventh among the ranked selections. He states in public that his goal is the Fukuoka Ichimonji of the Bizen-den and, specifically, the Sanchōmō. In 2024 and in 2026 he travelled to Paris with swords of his own for two exhibitions and a lecture at the Maison de la culture du Japon.

How we know it. From the official lists of the Zen Nihon Tōshōkai and the NBTHK, from the Okayama press, from the Maison de la culture du Japon and from the videos filmed in his forge. Almost all of his biography before 2018 is told only by him, in what he publishes about himself and in the profile he wrote for the Zen Nihon Tōshōkai.

What we do not know. His exact date of birth, his NBTHK results between 1997 and 2021, whether his blades show utsuri and whether he has ever finished an utsushi of the Sanchōmō that satisfies him.

Why this monograph II

Kawashima works a few kilometres from where the Sanchōmō was forged, in the same Osafune where the museum now keeps it. This monograph brings together what is known about him: who he is, where his craft comes from, what he looks for in the steel and in the hardening, and what can be asked of him and what cannot.

The route: the swordsmith (profile and biography), his masters, his style and his forging with the long video minute by minute, his prizes, the Sanchōmō, the videos, the glossary and the sources.

How to read the levels II

Each fact carries one of these four levels, the same as in the dossier on which the monograph is based:

• HD, documented fact: it is given by an official or primary source (the Zen Nihon Tōshōkai, the NBTHK, the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Setouchi city council and its museum), by the press reporting on a public event, or it can be seen in a video.
• AT, attribution: Kawashima himself says it (what he publishes about himself, his profile, his interviews) or a secondary source does, with no independent check.
• II, our interpretation: calculations, comparisons and reasoned readings.
• PC, yet to be checked: the source is missing or there is an unresolved contradiction.