MASAHIRO (正弘), 1st gen., Kanbun (寛文, 1661-1673), Musashi – “Ōmi no Kami Hōjōji Tachibana Masahiro” (近江守法城寺橘正弘), “Edo-jkū Hōjōji Masahiro” (江戸住法城寺正弘), real name Takigawa Saburōdayū (滝川三郎太夫), he came originally from Hirohara (弘原) in Tajima province where he was a descendant of the lineage of Hōjōji Kunimitsu (国光), later he moved to Edo and acted there as a leading smith of the establishment of the Edo-Hōjōji school, it is said that he signed his name Masahiro als with the characters (正広) and that he also worked in Satsuma province, mostly katana and wakizashi are extant, they have a Kanbun-shintō-sugata with a shallow sori, the jigane is a dense itame with fine ji-nie and masame in the shinogi-ji, the hamon is a suguha mixed with slightly undulating notare and gunome-ashi in nie-deki or a plain gunome-midare, in any case with a wide nioiguchi, some interpretations remind of Kotetsu (虎徹), the bōshi is sugu with a ko-maru-kaeri, we know date signatures from the fourth year of Jōō (承応, 1655) until the Enpō era (延宝, 1673-1681), incidentally, already the earliest known dating from Jōō four is combined with the honorary title Ōmi no Kami, the signatures of the 1st and the 2nd gen. Masahiro are very similar, wazamono, jō-saku