Work and style

His style

His family says he follows the Bizen-den (備前伝) in the manner of the Fukuoka Ichimonji (福岡一文字), like his uncle Sōyōmitsu, and a secondary source adds that his aim is jūka-chōji (重花丁子), the crowded, broad chōji. The photos of his tachi of 2025 and 2026 show a chōji with tall peaks and white nie; this is our reading of the images, with no official text to back it up.

Everything he has taken to the NBTHK competition since 2017 has been tachi, from 72.3 to 79.1 cm; no tantō is on record. On the card of his 2025 tachi he wrote: “自身の過去の作品とはまた違った雰囲気の作品に仕上がりました” (“it has turned out a work with a different feel from my earlier works”).

His signatures

In the NBTHK catalogues he signs 三池住陸郎國天作之 (Miike-jū Rokurō Kokuten kore o tsukuru) in 2017; 三池住國天作之 (Miike-jū Kokuten kore o tsukuru) in 2018 and 2019; 國天作 (Kokuten saku) in 2021 and 2022; 國天 (Kokuten) in 2023; and 三池住小宮國天作之 (Miike-jū Komiya Kokuten kore o tsukuru) in 2025 and 2026. The 2026 one also carries 和風慶雲 (wafū keiun, “gentle breeze and auspicious clouds”).

How he works

Two videos from 2020 film him at his forge in Ōmuta: he applies the hardening clay by hand, with spatulas and brushes, heats the blade in a long pine-charcoal hearth and quenches it in water in a tank with glass walls, where you can see it curve.