National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

The Enju school in Higo no Kuni is a branch of the Rai school in the Yamashiro forging tradition. It is said that Enju Kunitomo was a disciple of Rai Kunitoshi. While long swords like this one tend to become shorter due to grinding applied later, this sword retains its original appearance as it still has a wide body with nakazori (a type of a blade curve where the deepest part of the curve is at the center of the sword) and a grand look and in that sense, is a valuable piece. It has the fine-grained (koitame) ground metal and a whitish utsuri (literally reflection; a white misty formation that runs parallel to the hamon in the ground metal) rising from the shinogi (a ridge between the blade and the back). The hamon (literally "blade pattern," which is a visual effect created on the blade by the hardening process) is suguha (straight) with light notare, kogunome and konie (hamon types). The ground metal and hamon clearly demonstrate the characteristics of the Enju school forging style and this is one of the best among the swords of the school.