Kantei
A not fully polished blade on a wooden table, with the pale silhouette of a sitting cat in the hardened edge.

Photo: the smith himself

Hamon that draw

Work and style

Chrysanthemums on the water, cherry blossoms in the river and cats: hamon that draw figures.

On this page
  1. Figurative hamon
  2. Works

Figurative hamon

He says his thing is pictorial hamon (絵画的刃文, kaigateki hamon): the 菊水刃 (kikusui-ba), chrysanthemums floating on the water; the 吉野川 (Yoshinogawa), cherry blossoms in the current of the river; and the 踏雪花 (probable reading: tōsetsu-ka), cat’s paw prints in the snow. His photos show cat silhouettes in the hardened edge and a tantō with cherry blossoms.

In 2022 he wrote: “俺なんかはとうらぶの時流がないと生き残れてないタイプの刃文やってる” (“I make a type of hamon that, without the Tōken Ranbu craze, wouldn’t have survived”). He says the figurative hamon of the Edo period were born to give the sword value when it was no longer used in war, and that he takes them up again because almost nobody makes them today.

There is no record of him having entered work in the competitions of the NBTHK or the Zen Nihon Tōshōkai. There is no public gallery of his works with measurements.

A bare tantō on a black background, with the signature on the tang and a hamon of cherry blossoms floating in a current.
His tantō with a 吉野川 (Yoshinogawa) hamon: cherry blossoms in the river. Photo: the smith himself