Life and forging

His life

• 1996. Born in Kyoto prefecture, in Seika-chō.
• The calling. At fourteen he makes himself the hilt of a sword; in his last year of high school, his grandfather introduces him to a master of old martial arts who teaches him to polish and who takes him to Yoshida Masaya. His parents did not want him to give up going to university.
• 2018. Becomes an apprentice to Yoshida Masaya (𠮷田正也), in Tomika (Gifu).
• 2023. Receives his smith’s licence from the Agency for Cultural Affairs, aged 27. Until he sets up on his own he goes on working in his master’s workshop.
• 2024. Works as an apprentice murage (村下, the master of the furnace) at the NBTHK’s tatara (たたら).
• 2025. Exhibits at the Zen Nihon Tōshōkai’s 50th-anniversary show, 日本刀1000年の軌跡 (Nihontō sennen no kiseki, “a thousand years of the Japanese sword”), and joins the association that supports the offerings of swords to Atsuta shrine.
• 2026. Wins the NBTHK newcomer’s prize and that of the Zen Nihon Tōshōkai’s omamori-gatana exhibition; the latter was presented on 3 October at Okayama castle.

His craft

He does the engraving of his blades himself (刀匠彫, tōshō-bori) and a simple polish for use; he forges in public at the Seki forging museum and teaches the craft to the city’s children.

In the Seki video he says that the apprenticeship lasts “at least five years”, that one must “脈々と続いた技術をちゃんと継承して” (“properly inherit a technique that has come down from so far back”), that “美濃伝の特色は後世まで引き継がないといけない” (“the hallmarks of the Mino-den must be passed on to those who come after”) and that he wants to be “何歳になっても現役で刀一本でやってますと言えるような刀鍛冶” (“a smith who, whatever his age, can say he is still active and lives from the sword alone”).