The Fukuoka Ichimonji school
- The Ichimonji school is so called after the character 一 (ichi), “one”, with which many of its swordsmiths signed, and Fukuoka after the village of Fukuoka, on the banks of the Yoshii River, in Bizen. The Japanese Wikipedia regards Norimune as its founder.
- For the Japanese Wikipedia it is, after Osafune, the school with the most swords that are National Treasures.
- The Tokyo National Museum says that Yoshifusa worked in the mid-Kamakura together with 助真 (Sukezane) and 則房 (Norifusa). The English Wikipedia cites the three of them as the most characteristic of the period.
His family
The Japanese Wikipedia gives him as the son of 助房 (Sukefusa) and does not know his years of life. None of his works is dated in the records consulted: his period is an estimate.
How many Yoshifusa?
- Because his signature and his style change, it has been suggested that there were several swordsmiths with the same name, or several generations. The specialist Ogasawara Nobuo thinks there was only one, whose style changed with age.
- The English Wikipedia says the same: Yoshifusa, who left more blades than anyone else in the school, and Norifusa could each be several swordsmiths.
- The Japanese Wikipedia’s list of swordsmiths distinguishes two Fukuoka Ichimonji Yoshifusa by their given names. It does not say which of them the National Treasure works belong to, and here they are counted together.