Commentary From Tsuneishi, forwarded by NTHK:
Among the many Mino smiths, Zenjo Kaneyoshi is known for a very well-made sugata and beautiful workmanship. At first glance, one is reminded of the best quality Awataguchi works from Kyoto. On blades with regular Kyo-zori, the mihaba is a little bit thinner with a ko-kissaki and a feeling of a top quality sugata. He executed nioi-deki suguha: tight, thin nioi-deki suguha. The boshi looks like a usual Seki work: midare-komi, Oh-maru feeling with a shallow or short kaeri. Works with deep kaeri or kaku-tome kaeri are not seen. There are no works where there are significant activity of nie and nioi in the ha, which is in contrast to he Awataguchi school.
In addition, he made works of Oe Bizen style with suguha. However, Oe Bizen suguha works feature yakihaba that is wider and the hasuji becomes smoky. Zenjo’s suguha, on the other hand, is a very tight nioi-guchi suguha. This is a kantei point. This is his specialty. His jihada is mokume-hada, tight and beautiful, and like other Mino works, has a black hue. Masame-hada does not appear in the ji; if it appears, which is rare, it is seen in the shinogi-ji.
The Zenjo school – it is said that this group came from the Yamato Tegai smiths; first generation Kaneyoshi was a Yamato Tegai maker who signed Kaneyoshi (包吉). His given name was Seijiro, and having been a believer of the Hokke sect of Buddhism, had a Buddhist name of Zenjo(Zenryo) and belonged to …..temple that was located in the western part of Seki which at some point relocated to the center of Seki later. Among the mino-mono, his has the most beautiful sugata and has a very strong Yamato den influence.
According to the Nihonto Meikan there are then at least 9 generations of Kaneyoshi smiths until the Bakumatsu period and the last Kaneyoshi who would become one of the men who sewed the seeds for modern sword-making.