Within the workshops of the closing period, the body of smiths and their output that scholars group under the heading , the name Kiyomitsu (清光) was carried by a large number of hands. The consistently note that the swords signed in the Tenbun, Kōji, and Eiroku eras issue from in Province, and that the Hayami reference work enumerates roughly ten craftsmen who used common names (zokumyō) such as Gorōzaemon-no-jō, Magōemon-no-jō, Yosazaemon-no-jō, Hikobei-no-jō, and Magobei-no-jō. Of these, the registers single out two as the superior masters (jōkō): Gorōzaemon-no-jō Kiyomitsu and Magōemon-no-jō Kiyomitsu, the latter appearing in a Genki 2 example appraised to the second generation of that name. A Jiemon-no-jō Kiyomitsu, dated Genki 3, is recorded as absent from the standard signature references (), and one tang carries the fuller form Fujiwara Kiyomitsu. The blades place the line in the Sengoku world directly: one was forged while the smith stayed in the castle town of Tatsuno in Harima, and several bear commissioning inscriptions naming the Uragami (Urakami) Munekage.
What recurs across the corpus is a ground, often with mixed in, that the describe as standing somewhat prominently (); adheres thickly, fine enter, and a faint appears. The hardening divides into two registers. The first, named again and again as the hallmark of the line, is a broad into which , angular elements, and pointed () forms are interwoven, with and working vigorously, a -based edge carrying , and fine and ; the runs bright and clear. The second is a register: a whose waist opens broadly ( / ), mixed with and crab-claw (kani-no-) elements, taken high () with , , and , at times reaching full . The stress that, against fellow makers Tadamitsu and Sukesada who also worked , Kiyomitsu is told apart by that standing-grain -with- texture; one register flatly compares his to Yosaemon-no-jō Sukesada. The form is the late- : wide with little base-to-tip taper, thick , deep , and an extended (occasionally ), giving a weighty, dignified . To separate the named master from bulk , the registers point to refined, tightly-knit grain free of irregular clustering (seiryō), abundant , and a clear bright .
For the registers fix the discriminators: the standing / texture, the carrying with the bright edge, and, in the mode, the waist-opened compound () with kani-no-. One register observes that when is tempered the turns thinner than the usual thick build, and that surfaces within the group. The tie the line to the cutting-oriented strength of blades and to the martial spirit of the Sengoku age, a in ryōba-zukuri with ample and a being read as overflowing with that vigor. Provenance recorded on the blades carries documentary weight: the Tatsuno residence inscription and the Uragami Munekage commission map Gorōzaemon-no-jō's movements, a Gorōzaemon-no-jō work descended in the Matsudaira family of Shinobu, and a Magōemon-no-jō entered the Imperial collection. Within the register the line stands as the master line whose finest signed and dated works, alongside the more numerous mass production, are judged the equal of the Sukesada and Tadamitsu workshops and valued as material for tracing the individual Kiyomitsu hands.