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Only tantō
No long swords by Mitsukane are known, and the Muromachi publications already noted it: some believe he made very few at the beginning and others, none. In feudal times some unsigned tachi were attributed to him, but nothing verifiable.
Two phases
For Sesko, his Osafune tantō, in midare, are early works; the later ones, in suguha, follow the Rai manner. The temper of the Midare Mitsukane recalls Nagamitsu and Kagemitsu, and Sesko takes it as proof of his Osafune training.
Kantei keys
According to Markus Sesko, compared with Rai Kunitoshi, with whom he is most often compared:
- Sugata: hira-zukuri with uchizori and sunnobi, slender for their width; the kasane somewhat thicker than in Kunitoshi. They are sometimes likened to Awataguchi Yoshimitsu, but his are more sunnobi and less harmonious.
- Jihada: very dense ko-itame, with ji-nie, chikei and nie-utsuri; a jigane somewhat stronger than Kunitoshi’s and without Rai-hada.
- Hamon: suguha in ko-nie, narrow in more than half of his tantō, with kinsuji and some hotsure; in the Osafune phase, slanting gunome in ko-nie with a wide nioiguchi (匂口), ashi and kinsuji. It has somewhat more hataraki than Kunitoshi.
- Bōshi: with a wide temper, and a kaeri that brings out the nie.
- Nakago and mei: ubu nakago with a kurijiri tip with ha-agari and katte-sagari yasurime; the signature, of two characters, 光包 (Mitsukane), never with the Rai prefix.
Sesko also uses this as an argument: had he started in the Rai school and then moved to Osafune, he would have signed “Rai”.
The tantō of the Tokyo National Museum
The museum’s record describes it with a very compact ko-itame and a suguha hamon that show he was a pupil of Rai Kunitoshi; signed 光包 (Mitsukane), from the Kamakura period, 14th century, and from the Echizen-Matsudaira. Sesko adds that it measures 24.5 cm, that it is hira-zukuri with uchizori and mitsu-mune, with a curved furisode nakago, and that at first sight it looks like Kunitoshi but has more kasane and a wide bōshi with a long kaeri.
