Kantei

From Tokyo to Kyōtango

History and forging

Three young swordsmiths who joined forces in Tokyo and took their forge to the Kyoto coast. The dates are those given by the company.

On this page
  1. The company
  2. The three swordsmiths
  3. The swordsmiths

The company

In 2017 the group 玄承社 (Genshōsha) was formed in Tokyo. In 2018 its members gave an eight-day forging demonstration in the Republic of Buryatia, in Russia, with a delegation of Japanese swordsmiths, and another at a fair of the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

On 27 March 2019 the joint-stock company was incorporated, with Kuromoto Tomoki as representative and Yamazoe Kōsuke and Miyagi Tomoyuki as directors. In 2020 they made a tamahagane plastering trowel for an association that preserves the technique of the walls of cultural properties.

In 2021 the company moved to Kyōtango, in the north of Kyoto Prefecture; in January 2022 it lit the forge there for the first time, with its ceremony (火入れ式, hiire-shiki), and began forging.

A low building of dark wood with a light wooden gate and a sacred rope over the entrance.
The Kyōtango forge. Photo: the smith himself

The three swordsmiths

  • 黒本知輝 (probable reading: Kuromoto Tomoki), born in Osaka in 1986, representative of the company. According to a Waraku Web interview (2019), he became an apprentice to 吉原義人 (Yoshihara Yoshindo), mukansa, in 2012, received the approval to forge in 2017 and has forged on his own since 2018.
  • 山副公輔 (Yamazoe Kōsuke), born in Suita (Osaka) in 1990.
  • 宮城朋幸 (Miyagi Tomoyuki), born in Kōtō (Tokyo) in 1990. He signed 亀戸住朋幸 (Kameido-jū Tomoyuki), “Tomoyuki, resident of Kameido”, and by 2021 玄承亀戸住朋幸 (Genshō Kameido-jū Tomoyuki).

A 2022 notice from Kyōtango city hall, no longer online, said that all three trained with Yoshihara Yoshindo; this could only be checked, in an interview, for Kuromoto.