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Training
He was born in 1955 in Mizuho, now Ōnan, in Shimane prefecture, the son of a smith who made farming tools. He finished high school in Hiroshima in 1974 and that same year became an apprentice of Gassan Sadakazu, the second, Living National Treasure, in Nara. In 1980 he obtained his licence from the Agency for Cultural Affairs and opened his forge in Kita-Hiroshima; in 1982 he went with his master to the exhibition of the Living National Treasures at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, with public forging. In 1987 he trained in the traditional tatara furnace.
His career
He was named mukansa in 1995. In 2006 Hiroshima prefecture recognised him as holder of its intangible cultural property for the technique of forging the Japanese sword, and he presided over the prefecture’s association of sword craftsmen. He was vice-president of the 全日本刀匠会 (Zen Nihon Tōshōkai) from 2008 and its president from 2013 to August 2019, when Miyairi Kozaemon Yukihira took over from him; he is now its adviser.
Around 2012 he forged with his pupil Hashimoto Shōichi the Lance of Longinus from Evangelion, more than three metres long, for an exhibition at the Bizen Osafune museum. In 2013 he forged in public at the museum in Toruń, in Poland. In 2021 the 頼山陽史跡資料館 (Rai San'yō Shiseki Shiryōkan) in Hiroshima devoted to him the exhibition 「名刀に挑む」 (Meitō ni idomu, “Taking on the famous swords”), with 35 pieces, according to the San'in Chūō Shinpō newspaper.