Year by year
| Year | Event | Level |
|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Joins Gassan Sadakazu and is his last pupil. | AT |
| 1995 | Sadakazu dies: the apprenticeship with him lasted a year at most. The sources do not say with whom he continued until his licence in 1999. | II |
| 1999 | Licence from the Agency for Cultural Affairs to forge swords. | AT |
| 2001 | With his master’s permission he sets up on his own and opens his forge in Shiga. | AT |
| 2005 | Research assistant in the excavation of the Noji-Onoyama ironworking site (野路小野山製鉄遺跡, Noji Onoyama seitetsu iseki), in Kusatsu. | AT |
| 2010–2022 | Posts in the Zen Nihon Tōshōkai (全日本刀匠会, Zen Nihon Tōshōkai), the swordsmiths’ association: treasurer and auditor, and head of its Kinki branch from 2016 to 2019. | AT |
| 2011 | Completes the Agency for Cultural Affairs course on forging old swords. | AT |
| 2013 | Votive tantō for the Muchizaki Hachiman shrine and a forging demonstration for German television, ZDF. | AT |
| 2014 | Technical adviser on the film 『駆け込み女と駆け出し男』 (Kakekomi onna to kakedashi otoko). | AT |
| 2025 | Lecture for the city of Kusatsu on the Noji-Onoyama site and today’s swordsmiths. | AT |
His materials AT
He uses clay from Shiga, from Suzuka and from the hills of Kusatsu next to the Noji-Onoyama site, for the hodo and the yaki-ire; he says the clay of his home region improved the colour of the iron. For about ten years he has made his own oroshigane, he uses some hundred kilos of pine charcoal per sword and he uses straw in the yaki-ire.
His way of working AT
He sums up his craft in 「変わる努力 変わらない勇気」 (kawaru doryoku, kawaranai yūki: “the effort to change, the courage not to change”). He keeps a record of every polish, every saya and every habaki of his swords. His usual polisher is Tamaki Jōji (玉置城二, Tamaki Jōji), from Kyoto, who filmed his forging in 2011.
Exhibitions AT
He has exhibited at the Sano Museum (2012), in the exhibition of the Gassan school (2017), at the Sanada Museum in Kudoyama (2018 and 2020), and in the exhibition for the fiftieth anniversary of the Zen Nihon Tōshōkai at the Osaka Museum of History (2025).