Hiragana mei translation, please.

[wildfield]

My first real nihonto and also first post.

 

After several weeks of trying to identify/translate the mei, I've just realized that the characters are hiragana. Adding the digraphs, diacritics, and the ways that the characters are chiseled, i've reached my limit, confused, and out of patient. All help is appreciated, greatly.

 

West.

[cabowen]

Not hiragana....believe it is:

 

Toto ju Minamoto Yoshiharu saku

 

東都住源義治作

 

Made by Yoshiharu living in To-to (Tokyo)

[wildfield]

Chris, thank you so much. It took me weeks without result, yet you response in 30 minutes.

 

They must be katakana, right? I checked wikipedia's hiragana and katakana tables before i post (or even the whole "list of joyo kanji"), but didn't recognized any.

 

I claimed that this is my first "real" nihonto, but now that I know that it's a showato, and I don't see any forging pattern, is it a traditionally made sword?

 

I think I've been down this road before, where the question never seem to stop arising. Should have been satisfied with that Hanwei's practical katana.

 

"Encumbered forever by desire and ambition

There's a hunger still unsatisfied

Our weary eyes still stray to the horizon

Though down this road we've been so many times"

 

Again, thank you Chris.

 

West.

[cabowen]

not katakana either, just kanji, but written rather cursively....

 

not sure if it is a showato or not. can't tell from the one picture and I see no showa stamp......

 

This smith made both types of blades.

[george trotter]

Hi West,

don't be discouraged too soon.

Show us a few pics of the blade and kitae, maybe we can offer an opinion.

just from your closeup, the nakago, yasurimei and mei look carefully finished, so looks promising.

Regards,

George.

[Stephen]

looks like Chris is spot on, id lean twords gendaito not showato.
http://japaneseswordindex.com/oshigata/yoshharu.jpg