How he came to the forge
His father was a sword enthusiast and introduced him to it as a child. He decided to become a swordsmith on seeing the living swordsmiths in a catalogue, with their works and their photos: “if a person does it, I can do it too”. In his second year of high school he went to ask Kawachi Kunihira to take him on, and Kunihira accepted him on his fourth visit.
Year by year
| Year | Event | Level |
|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Finishes Sayō high school (兵庫県立佐用高等学校, Hyōgo kenritsu Sayō kōtō gakkō). | AT |
| 1992 | Enters the forge of Kawachi Kunihira, and the NBTHK calls him Kunihira’s first pupil. | HD |
| 1994 | Learns the basics of engraving and of hi from Yanagimura Senju (柳村仙寿, Yanagimura Senju), a mukansa engraver. | AT |
| 1997–2001 | Five years as an apprentice murage at the NBTHK tatara (日刀保たたら, Nittōho tatara). | HD |
| June 1998 | First work at the NBTHK Shinsaku Meitōten (新作名刀展, Shinsaku Meitōten), sent from his master’s forge: it is 入選 (nyūsen), accepted. He tells this in the 2017 NBTHK journal. | AT |
| 1998 | Licence from the Agency for Cultural Affairs to forge swords. | AT |
| 1999 | Sets up on his own and opens his forge in Sayō. | HD |
| August 2009 | The torrential rains in Sayō flood his forge; the NBTHK says it was partly destroyed. | HD |
| 2009–2010 | Three months without forging. The following spring he wins the highest prize in his section with a katana engraved on the nakago with 一陽来復 (ichiyō raifuku, “spring returns after winter”). | AT |
| 2011–2016 | Studies crafts by distance learning at the Osaka University of Arts (大阪芸術大学, Ōsaka Geijutsu Daigaku) and graduates in 2016. | AT |
| 2018 | Copy of the tachi Shishiō, commissioned by a public fund-raising in memory of Saimura Masahiro and offered in April at the ruins of Takeda castle (竹田城, Takeda-jō). | HD |
| 2019 | Mukansa, and the Culture Prize of the city of Himeji. | AT |
| 2020–2021 | Lecturer at Kansai University (関西大学, Kansai Daigaku) and instructor in the course for preserving the swordsmith’s techniques. | AT |
What the NBTHK says about him HD
The NBTHK journal of June 2018 praises his eagerness to learn: he always asks for his works to be assessed. The same issue tells of the 2009 flood and presents him as Kunihira’s first pupil.
At the forge
A block of steel in the embers of the furnace Photo: Kei Nakamura · © Kei Nakamura (Spare Time Studio) 
Forge tongs Photo: Kei Nakamura · © Kei Nakamura (Spare Time Studio)
Outreach AT
He has appeared on NHK (2010) and on an NHK BS programme (2016), in the French magazine la forge (no. 59, January 2015) and in a Google showcase on the craftsmen of Japan (2016). With Kunihira he gave talks in Lithuania (Kaunas, 2005, and Alytus, 2007). In 2013 he forged the votive sword for the inauguration of the Kegeinin, at the Kamineyama-ji temple in Osaka.