Hi Daniel, absolutely no offence taken at your comments. Thanks for the thoughts on the kanji. I am not sure when China started producing knock off Japanese swords, and that would certainly be a possibility if they were doing it more than 30 years back. I have never thought the blade a quality hand forged item but as Henk has noted the fittings do seem authentic shin gunto. It could be as simple as someone having some nice fittings and attaching them to a relatively modern repro blade...
cheers
David