Tōshirō Yoshimitsu

Place: Kyoto

Biography:

Tōshirō Yoshimitsu was a renowned swordsmith of short swords and regarded as one of the three greatest swordsmiths together with Masamune and Sadamune. He was a disciple of Norikuni or of Kuniyoshi and was a swordsmith of the Awataguchi school in Yamashiro no Kuni. He was especially known as an expert in short swords and was commonly known as 'Toshiro'. He was active during the Kamakura period (1185-1333) and is considered to be one of the best-known Japanese swordsmiths of the old sword (kotō) period, which existed until 1596.