I was reading in a book and cannot for the life of me find it again discussion over a particular sword school that was known to make very very durable, strong, and robust "no frills" blades. It was rumored that a particular daimyo (I cannot remember if it was Uesegi Kenshin, Takeda Shingen, etc) equipped his bodyguard with swords made by this school because they were well known to be incredibly strong in battle (although as stated before, very no frills...beauty through absolute functionality).
Does this ring a bell to anyone? I was comparing some different sword schools and wanted to go back to this one and look at examples to compare with others of the time, figure out exactly why they were known to be more durable.
Sorry, I know this is very vague.