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The vocation
He was born in 1981 in Takeda (Ōita). He finished high school in Ōita and worked as a temporary worker in Ōsaka until, at 25, he decided to become a swordsmith: if one had to live from a craft, that of the swordsmith seemed to him the most beautiful. He looked for workshops in the list of the swordsmiths’ association, the 全日本刀匠会 (Zen Nihon Tōshōkai), and eight in Gifu turned him down before the 25th Fujiwara Kanefusa, in Seki, accepted him.
The apprenticeship and the dates
He became an apprentice at 26; after five years he passed the Agency for Cultural Affairs course, the 美術刀剣刀匠技術保存研修会 (Bijutsu tōken tōshō gijutsu hozon kenshūkai), and, after about two more years serving his master, he became independent.
The Takeda forge
His forge, 興梠房興日本刀鍛錬場 (Kōroki Fusaoki Nihontō Tanrenjō), is in Ogi-machi, in Takeda, at about 600 metres above sea level among fields; the Aso shrine performed the ground-blessing rite, the 地鎮祭 (jichinsai).
The Hotarumaru
While he was building his forge, his senior fellow apprentice, Fukudome Fusayuki, told him about the project to reconstruct the Hotarumaru, the lost ōdachi of the Aso shrine, and he became its co-founder. The crowdfunding campaign passed its goal in five hours and gathered 3,185 backers. Together they forged the replica, an ōdachi of about 136 cm and 2.5 kg, which was offered to the shrine in 2017; the delivery of the mounting was planned for 18 November 2023, and with it the project would close.
The sword of Bungo
With Taira Kiyoaki he takes part in the project to revive the sword of Bungo (豊後刀, Bungo-tō), with iron sand from the Ōno river and a tatara furnace. On 4 October 2024, Japanese Sword Day, the two visited the governor of Ōita, who presented them as the only two working swordsmiths in the prefecture.
On 9 January 2023 he gave a public folding demonstration at the fire-lighting ceremony of Taira’s forge, with him and two other swordsmiths, and in January 2023 he gave a talk at the exhibition 大分の名刀 (Ōita no meitō, “The famous swords of Ōita”) of the Ōita Prefectural History Museum, in Usa, where current works by him and by Taira were also exhibited.
He wants his work to give something back to the land where he was born, and for there to be swordsmiths able to live from the craft in a hundred or two hundred years.