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Training
He was born in 1921 in Tatsumi-machi, in Mattō (today Hakusan, in Ishikawa), the eldest son of Sumitani Tomokichi, owner of a soy sauce and sake factory. He became interested in the sword after seeing an exhibition at secondary school in Kanazawa, where he founded and led a sword club. In 1941 he graduated in mechanical engineering from Ritsumeikan University (立命館, Ritsumeikan), entered its forging research institute and became a pupil of Sakurai Masayuki. In 1942, after the university workshop burned down, he moved to a forge in Onomichi (尾道, Onomichi), in Hiroshima, where he carried out research on his own.
His forge in Mattō
After the war he went home and worked in the family business. When the ban was lifted he took up forging again, and in 1954 he obtained permission from the Committee for the Protection of Cultural Properties to forge swords as works of art. In 1956 he built the Sanryūtei forge at his home and held the ceremony of the first fire; in 1965 he opened another, Ryōzantei.
Iron and ancient knives
In 1971 and 1972 he developed a small bellows-driven tatara (たたら, tatara) to make his own steel and demonstrated the method in public. From 1975 he studied and reproduced the tōsu (刀子, tōsu), the knives of the Shōsōin (正倉院, Shōsōin) and of the Shitennōji (四天王寺, Shitennōji); in 1979, the iron and the inlay techniques of ancient swords, and in 1985, the dyeing of ivory and the 撥鏤 (bachiru) of the Shōsōin.
Ise and the imperial household
In 1964 he received his first commission from the Ise shrine, a tachi of 3 shaku and 5 sun (玉纒太刀, tamamaki no tachi); a tachi of 2 shaku and 6 sun followed in 1966 and, in 1989, sixteen tachi. In 1992 he received the commission for the pieces for the next ritual transfer. For 1969, the city of Hakusan counts ten tachi and the Tōbunken obituary twelve.
He forged the sword for the emperor’s enthronement ceremony in 1990 and the protective swords (守り刀, mamori-gatana) of Princess Mako in 1991, of Crown Princess Masako in 1993 and of Princess Kako in 1994.
Posts, exhibitions and pupils
He was a councillor of the NBTHK from 1971 and a director from 1992; in 1975 he was one of the founders of the 全日本刀匠会 (Zen Nihon Tōshōkai), of which he was deputy secretary and, from 1984, chairman of the board. In 1979 he showed his replica of the Nihongō spear at an exhibition of Japanese armour in Paris. In 1990 he gave a lecture at the British Museum; in 1991 the Sano Museum (佐野美術館, Sano Bijutsukan) devoted an exhibition to him, and in 1992 the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art. Since 1988 the Mattō museum has had a room devoted to him, and today the Hakusan Museum displays his work.
Among his pupils or students were Miyairi Norihiro, who spent five years with him after graduating in 1978, and Kawachi Kunihira, who came in 1984 to learn the Bizen-den.