Imahori (今堀), whose given name is written 千五百蔵 or 千五百歳 and whose reading cannot be confidently established, but may be Chiiozō, is among the least documented of the eleven.
He was appointed in the shinban (新番) unit under Yamaguchi Kanbei. The Wikipedia roster attaches him to 神陰流 (Shinkage-ryū); the Mata-shichi blog describes him as a 直心影流 (Jiki Shinkage-ryū) swordsman “of whom the particulars are unknown.”
If the 神陰流 reading is correct, it would point not to 直心影流 but to the living Bakumatsu Shinkage-ryū that Yamaoka Tesshū received in the same years from Kusumi Kantekisai (久須美閑適斎) — a plausible source-school for Imahori as well. An Imahori Toyotarō (今堀登与太郎) appears among the sewa-kokoroe appointed later the same year and is plausibly a relative.
Whether Imahori’s “Shinkage-ryū” denotes a branch of the Kashima / Jiki Shinkage tradition, a separate Shinkage line, or a copyist’s substitution for 直心影流 cannot be settled from the available material, and is left open here.
