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About the school

Wakasa Fuyuhiro School若狭冬広派

The Fuyuhiro line worked at Obama in Wakasa Province, and the setsumei consistently trace its founder to Sagami. He is recorded as the son of the third-generation Hirotsugu of Sagami, said to have relocated to Obama around the Kōshō era (1455 to 1457), with one blade instead reporting that he studied under Tsunahiro of Sagami. The earliest hand is identified on a two-character *mei* attributed to the first-generation Wakasa Fuyuhiro, and the name continued thereafter, the lineage held to have run for some five generations and the signature extending into the *shinshintō* period and the closing years of the Edo period. Dated tangs anchor the activity firmly in the sixteenth century, with inscriptions across the Eishō, Tenbun, Genki, Eiroku, and Tenshō eras, one of them reading "Fuyuhiro, 73 years of age." Several blades carry residence inscriptions for places far from Wakasa, among them Hōki, Unshū, Izumo, Bizen, and Bitchū, including a katana made at Matsuyama in Bitchū; whether these issued from one man or several is left by the setsumei as a matter for further study. The descent from Sagami places the line within the *Soshu-den*, working its late, provincial idiom. Across these blades the forging is *itame* mixed with *mokume* and *nagare*, repeatedly described as inclining toward *hada-dachi*, or standing grain, with *ji-nie* and frequent *chikei*. Two tempering modes recur. One follows late Sōshū and Sue-Sōshū taste, a wide *notare* or *ō-notare* mixed with *ko-gunome*, *ko-chōji*, and *togariba*, carrying *ashi* and *yō*, *nie* that adheres thickly and at times coarsely, with *sunagashi* and *kinsuji*, and in the most active examples *tobiyaki* and *muneyaki* that build into *hitatsura*. The other approaches Sue-Bizen, seen in a *gunome-midare* with *koshi-biraki* tendency or a tighter *nioiguchi* over *ko-nie*. A third register appears as a broad *suguha-chō* set with *ko-gunome* and *ko-notare*. The *bōshi* is typically *midare-komi*, turning *ko-maru* or pointed with *hakikake*. To read the hand, the setsumei point to the standing grain and bright *nioiguchi*, the often grand *sakizori* construction with extended or *ō-kissaki*, and the carving: *bō-hi* with *soe-hi*, and on one blade a *kurikara* with *bonji* and *goma-bashi* whose manner is likened to Heianjō Nagayoshi rather than to Sōshū. Generations and modes separate by whether the workmanship leans Sue-Sōshū or Sue-Bizen. For kantei, the setsumei treat the place-stating signatures and dated tangs as the principal documentary value, several blades singled out for the clarity their inscriptions bring to the line's chronology and geographic reach; one Tenshō 8 katana adds the invocation "Hachiman Daibosatsu" beside the *mekugi-ana* and "Jūdai" cut on the *mune*. The recurring open question of the far-flung residence signatures, Hōki through Bitchū, frames the standing of the name as one whose precise membership the register still weighs. Among individual works, the writers name a *suriage* katana as a *kessaku*, a wholly hardened blade close to late Bizen, and a two-character first-generation piece judged the finest in *jigane* and *hamon*. Accompanying *uchigatana koshirae* survive on two katana, one with shakudō *nanako* fittings bearing the "Misu aoi" crest, the other a black-lacquered leather *katate-maki* mounting whose *saya* is held close in date to the blade. The setsumei present Fuyuhiro as a capable smith adept in both *suguha* and *midare* and in *horimono*, his Wakasa workshop carrying the *Soshu-den* into the late Muromachi and beyond.

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