Newly Forged Japanese Katana by Akamatsu Tarō Kanemitsu (赤松太郎兼光) — Kunzan Prize Winner of the Higo Akamatsu Tarō Line

Commission a blade forged from the family's own smelted steel by the leading smith of the next Akamatsu Tarō generation

Akamatsu Tarō Kanemitsu is the son and pupil of Akamatsu Tarō Kanetsugu and the rising master of a Kumamoto sword family whose ancestors served as official swordsmiths to the Sagara clan, lords of the Hitoyoshi domain. Like his father, he forges with steel the family smelts itself from iron sand, rather than with the standard tamahagane distributed to licensed smiths. His record at the national exhibitions, crowned by the Kunzan Prize at the 2022 Gendai Tōshoku-ten (Contemporary Sword Craftsmen Exhibition), places him among the most accomplished smiths of his generation. A katana commissioned through Tozando is forged to order by the smith himself and priced as set by the All Japan Swordsmith Association (全日本刀匠会).

On the smith — Akamatsu Tarō Kanemitsu (赤松太郎兼光)

Kanemitsu was born Kimura Mitsuhiro (木村光宏) in 1979 in Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture, the eldest son of the swordsmith Kimura Kanesada, who works as Akamatsu Tarō Kanetsugu (赤松太郎兼嗣). He entered his father's forge in 2000 and received his swordsmith's license from the Agency for Cultural Affairs in March 2005. Every smith of the school includes the name "Akamatsu Tarō" (赤松太郎) in his signature, and Kanemitsu's blades are signed in forms such as Higo no Kuni Yatsushiro jū Kanemitsu saku (肥後國八代住兼光作, "made by Kanemitsu, resident of Yatsushiro in Higo Province").

He works alongside his father at the family forge in Futami, Yatsushiro, in a region where the Enju (延寿) and Dōtanuki (同田貫) schools once flourished. Father and son have also made collaborative blades, signed jointly by Kanetsugu and Kanemitsu and inscribed as forged from their own smelted steel (以自家製鉄鍛之).

Awards and recognition

Kanemitsu won the Effort Prize and the Newcomer Prize at his first national exhibition in 2006. At the first Shinsaku Nihontō Tōshoku Gijutsu Tenrankai (New Japanese Sword and Craft Exhibition) of the Nihontō Bunka Shinkō Kyōkai in 2010 he received a Silver Prize, and he won the Silver Prize, first place, at the fourth edition in 2015. He received the All Japan Swordsmith Association Prize at the Omamori-gatana (protective sword) Exhibition in 2013.

At the Gendai Tōshoku-ten of the Nihon Bijutsu Tōken Hozon Kyōkai (NBTHK), he won the Kunzan Prize, one of the exhibition's special prizes, in 2022. He followed this with the Kanzan Prize in the tantō and ken division in 2023, and the first-place Excellence Prize in the same division in 2026.

Style — Kiyomaro boldness and Fukuoka Ichimonji elegance

The Akamatsu Tarō school is known for a bold manner modeled on Minamoto Kiyomaro (源清麿), the celebrated late-Edo smith, with wide blades and an assertive, strongly tempered hamon. Kanemitsu carries this tradition forward while also making tachi in the manner of the mid-Kamakura Fukuoka Ichimonji school of Bizen, with its flamboyant chōji (clove-shaped) hamon. The family's self-smelted steel gives his jigane (steel surface) a character of its own. His work ranges from tachi and katana to tantō and ken, the division in which he has won his most recent national honors.

A commissioned katana by Akamatsu Tarō Kanemitsu is a blade from a living family tradition of Higo swordmaking, forged from the smith's own steel and made for one owner. Please contact us to discuss specifications and lead time.

Smith profile

• Swordsmith name: Akamatsu Tarō Kanemitsu (赤松太郎兼光)
• Real name: Kimura Mitsuhiro (木村光宏)
• Born: 1979, Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture
• Teacher: his father, Akamatsu Tarō Kanetsugu (赤松太郎兼嗣), from 2000
• Swordsmith license: 2005 (Agency for Cultural Affairs)
• Forge: Kimura family forge, Futami, Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture
• Major awards: Gendai Tōshoku-ten Kunzan Prize (2022); Kanzan Prize, tantō and ken division (2023); Silver Prize, first place, Shinsaku Nihontō Tōshoku Gijutsu Tenrankai (2015)
• Specialty: Kiyomaro-style bold blades; Fukuoka Ichimonji-style tachi; self-smelted steel
• Price: set by the All Japan Swordsmith Association (全日本刀匠会)