Yamada Asaemon Executioner School

Yamada Asaemon is a title passed down through the generations by the heads of the Yamada family, who served as the sword test-cutters of the Tokugawa shogunate from the mid-Edo period to the early Meiji era. This family was responsible for two duties: sword test-cutting (o-tameshi goyō, official sword-testing duty for the shogunate) and the execution of those sentenced to death.

The most famous tradition is "tameshigiri" (test cutting), a practice to verify the sharpness of a blade. The bodies of executed criminals were permitted to be received by the Yamada family, and they used these to test the sharpness of swords commissioned by the shogunate and various households. Drawing on their experience with test cutting, the Yamada family also appraised swords.

Yoshimutsu, the fifth head, ranked swordsmiths based on the sharpness of blades verified through test cutting, and published the results as "wazamono" in the book Kaihō Kenshaku in Kansei 9 (1797).

In 1870 (Meiji 3), a Dajōkan proclamation prohibited sword test cutting using human bodies. In 1881 (Meiji 14), when Yamada Yoshifusa left his post as executioner, the tradition of the Yamada Asaemon family, which had continued since the mid-Edo period, came to an end.