New local NBTHK 'Ho-no-to' shrine sword polishing project, starting April 4, 2026

[Bugyotsuji]

With the falling population, and villages and shrines suffering, many formerly dedicated swords are rusting away for lack of attention. 

So far the local chapter has negotiated with many shrine authorities and been able to restore nine swords to their former glory, most of them now housed in Okayama Prefectural Museum. Some of these have even achieved official cultural designations.

 

Each time though,we have had to come up with novel ways to fund these restorations, and it is not a cheap venture.

 

Two swords were housed in the Imamura Hachiman Gu, but the previous priests were unwilling to get involved in any project. The new priest however has been more cooperative, and in our third grand project, two swords are now set for polishing, preservation and display. Osafune Sword Museum has agreed to house them and care for them. There will be an official opening ceremony for the project at the shrine on the 4th of April, 2026. The swords will be funded by various means, lectures, etc., and the target is JPY 3 million.

 

The first is a long Odachi by a relatively unknown smith named Inoue Kyubei Masatoshi, dated 1665. 2 m 63 cm overall, the blade length is 1 m 77.3 cm, and it weighs 4.5 kg. The Inoue Kyubei line of smiths lived under the walls of Okayama Castle, Masashige, Masatoshi, Masakiyo, but very few of their works survive, making this a rare artefact. The total estimate for restoration, including a magnolia wood box for example, is 2.5 million.

 

The second is a 1574 katana by Genbei no Jo Sukesada, with a blade length of 68.2 cm, dedicated by a retainer of the Ikeda Daimyo family to the shrine in 1738. This will add a further 500,000 to the bill making a total of 3 million yen.

 

With this latest project they are not planning to ask for donations from overseas. Both blades will be on and off display over the coming year, and from the April 2027 shrine presentation ceremony onwards, they will be housed at Osafune Sword Museum.

 

[Bugyotsuji]

[MassiveMoonHeh]

Truly a sword fit for the gods... that blade is massive! 

[Jussi Ekholm]

What an amazing project Piers, I'll send you a PM 

[Ganko]

Interesting that this Masatoshi came up. I have a 70 cm katana signed Bizen Okayama ju kyubei no jo Masatoshi and it is dated Man-ji gannen.

I picked up last year and it was just polished in Jan.. It is a really nice piece of work. I have attached some pics, please excuse my poor photo work.

[Ganko]

More pics

[Bugyotsuji]

What a wonderful coincidence Tom! I will pass your information along, if I may?

[Ganko]

23 minutes ago, Bugyotsuji said:

What a wonderful coincidence Tom! I will pass your information along, if I may?

You certainly may.  I might add that it is now one of my favorite swords. It gives me much pleasure to remove it from it's saya and enjoy it's properties that are so well balanced.

[Bugyotsuji]

Tom, did you have this polished in Japan?

[Bugyotsuji]

Yesterday the blades (and the assembled guests) were blessed at Imamura Gu shrine by the Priestess, before they started their new journey to the Osafuné Sword Museum where they are on temporary display. The TV crew were there to cover it.


And

[Bugyotsuji]

Tom, there was genuine amazement about your blade, and the coincidence! My sword appreciation sensei was particularly surprised, and interested to see the Hamon which is different from another blade made near Okayama Castle which he owns.

[Ganko]

Piers, I have attached a couple more pics of it's hamon. I took them in bright sunlight just for fun. Incidentally the sword is not touching the floor tiles. The sword really has become a favorite of mine, every aspect of it is so well balanced.

[Bugyotsuji]

Tom, thank you! I’ve passed these on and received a note of appreciation in return.
( And whereabouts did you have it polished? Just a general, non-specific answer is fine!)

[Bugyotsuji]

These long Õdachi blades were actually used, according to a knowledgeable friend with whom I was chatting the other day. They had a very long Tsuka too.

[Ganko]

On 4/4/2026 at 5:50 PM, Bugyotsuji said:

Tom, did you have this polished in Japan?

Piers, The polish was done here in Oregon, I think the sashikomi  polish shows it's attributes quite well.

[Bugyotsuji]

3 hours ago, Ganko said:

Piers, The polish was done here in Oregon, I think the sashikomi  polish shows it's attributes quite well.

Yes indeed. Well done.
Many thanks.

[Bazza]

Odachi are indeed a fascinating subject.  I was just doing my daily trawl of all things interesting when unexpectedly this Facebook reel popped into my orbit:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1526780725833444

 

@Jussi Ekholm  may have a thing or two to say about this practitioner of the art of drawing an Odachi??

 

Regards,

BaZZa.

[Jussi Ekholm]

As a disclaimer I must say I am not a martial artist even though I dabbled few years in Japanese sword arts when I was teenager.

 

As a ōdachi fan I will vouch many of them were indeed used in battles. So far I have seen 30 historical ōdachi in various places in Japan and I am hoping to still see many more in the future. There are however some limitations by size and by age that are my own personal feelings, I will expand more on them later on the post. Most of the ōdachi I have seen are preserved in various shrines in Japan and photography in shrine treasure rooms is forbidden. So I don't have pictures taken at the shrines apart from few where the museum staff wanted me to take a picture of the item. However in books I do have lots and lots of pictures and information.

 

I don't know my martial arts history that well but I know in Japan there are some arts that are seen as koryū (古流) and they have strong historical standing. I believe the martial art shown in above video is Enshin-ryū (円心流), which is to my understanding classified as koryū, old historical martial art. To my limited understanding the meaning and specifics of kata in koryū is not really given outside the school. So even if you see that ōdachi is drawn from the hip in videos it could possibly be just a form of training. I believe I have seen other videos of this same person using the same sword over the years. I believe it is ōdachi with a blade length of 三尺六寸 3 shaku 6 sun which in centimeters is 109 cm. He does have impressive drawing and sheating technique and I believe he would be very seasoned martial artist.

 

This brings me to the koshirae and how they were worn. I have recorded currently 151 ōdachi in Japan. Extremely few of them are in katana koshirae, as wearing them thrusted through the belt was not really that good option in my personal opinion, and as they were intended for battlefield use I don't see wearing them thrusted through the belt, they were already out when going to live battle or in many cases high ranking samurai had sword bearers who carried the ōdachi and allowed their master to draw it. There are however few very large Edo period swords that I classify as an ōdachi that are in katana koshirae, I can remember few from memory.

- Itsukushima Jinja has 99,8 cm blade dated 1867, it was commissioned by a sumo wrestler at that time. (I have seen this sword at the shrine)

- Matsubara Hachimangu had 101,3 cm blade (if I understand correctly it is dated 1644 and dedicated to the shrine when made).

- Unfortunately there is only small picture but I believe the Takaoka Jinja sword 106,1 cm and 1641 dated blade that was in previous Okayama Branch restoration project might have katana koshirae, the pic I have seen is very small.

However mostly the old historical ōdachi had various types of ōdachi koshirae. Many of the Edo period ōdachi that still have koshirae have an ōdachi koshirae too.

 

Also the dating on the blades for Edo period can show how it will fit historically into timeline of Japan, as battles ceased after the early 1600's. I watched some Japanese youtube videos and in one of them it was mentioned that actually commissioning an ōdachi cost several times the normal amount of money, which is easy to understand, as the project of making a giant sword is lot more complicated than a normal sized one. This usually would mean that the person commissioning the sword must be wealthy and/or possibly a high ranking samurai.

 

Finally comes the size of the ōdachi. These are just my personal opinions after seeing many of them live at shrines and lots and lots in books. Of course unfortunately currently handling experience is limited to modern swords. I am talking about blade lengths here, I see the length range of 3 to 4 shaku (90-120 cm) as perfectly reasonable range, there shouldn't be any issues with these. blade lengths of 4 to 5 shaku (120-150 cm) is where I see the upper end of actually usable ōdachi. When you go to blade lengths of over 5 shaku (150+ cm) I just don't see them all that reasonable for usability. As you have to calculate the tsuka in, these weapons are over 200 cm in total length and the majority of it is in blade. For usability I would rather exchange some of that blade length to handle/shaft length, arriving towards large bladed nagamaki and naginata.

 

I think the longest ōdachi that I know has historical record of it being used in battle is the gigantic Tarōtachi (太郎太刀) of Atsuta Jingū it has blade length of 221,5 cm. There is a historical legend and provenance to back that up and there is a story for it. In my understanding the short version would be that two relatives wielding two giant ōdachi Tarōtachi and Jirōtachi, were stalling the enemy troops while wielding these on horseback. The enemy finally killed both of them but they gave time for others to get to safety. I believe they were dedicated to Atsuta Jingū in 1576. Atsuta Jingū has three ōdachi in similar koshirae Tarōtachi, Jirōtachi and Kanetake ōdachi made in 1620. As there is historical story and provenance I cannot discard the fact that the giant sword could indeed have been used in battle. In my brain I just can't figure out what would be the benefit in having these extremely long blades compared to very long blade with slightly longer handle. The post came quite a bit longer than I originally intended and had to do some fact checking as I hate making errors.