The Kanabō (金房) smiths worked in Nanto, the old name for Nara in Yamato province, from the end of the period into the early era. Their relationship to any of the five established Yamato schools is not clearly fixed in the record, and the treat the group as one that rose and flourished in Nara during the late decades, with dated examples encountered from the Eishō era onward. The blades here name several hands. Masatsugu (政次), who signed as Kanabō Hyōe no Jō Masatsugu and as Kanefusa Hyōe no Jō Masatsugu, is described as the representative and best-known smith of the line. Masasada (政定), signing Kanefusa Saemon-no-jō Masasada, left an dated Eiroku 2 (1559). The note that the group, signing in various forms of the Kanabō name, was numerous enough to be called a flourishing tradition, though one whose membership was once disparaged with the epithet "Kanenobō."
Rather than the classical manner of the earlier five schools, the Kanabō hand reads as a idiom that shares points with the and spheres. The is that flows into and tends toward , with the grain often standing and growing large, and a whitish appearing in places. The divides between two registers the repeatedly cite: a large -based , the "hips" of the opening out and mixed at times with -ba, , or ; and a carried on a tight . Across both, and enter well and stand out, and adhere, and with run through; the frequently takes a , subdued cast. The runs , often with and a pointed or return. The build tends to broad with on the swords, while are conspicuously common, a production read as answering the demands of the warrior monks (sōhei) of Kōfukuji and the great Nanto temples.
For , the line is held by the flowing -tending , the broad with prominent and over a tight or subdued , and the marked presence of and long polearm blades among extant work. The single out Masatsugu's polearms as typical of his hand, several preserved with their vermilion-lacquer mounts (shunuri ) and one black-lacquer mounting, the fittings inferred to have been made together with the blade. The records grant that true masterworks within the group are rare, yet they describe individual blades by Masatsugu and Masasada with fine , skillfully cut , and workmanship judged excellent and dignified. Within the wider Yamato sphere the Kanabō stand as a late, utilitarian offshoot whose polearms and serviceable swords carry the group's name into the register.