[Squirrelloid]

Jigami is mostly a way to turn n into RPs early, since its conj 0 in CBM. Later on he'll be a low opportunity-cost forger for cheap N gear. May or may not be worthwhile, but I'd consider summoning a couple.

Nushi are your entrance to death magic, so don't overlook them. (Also, the reason you don't need to put death on your pretender!)

Ujigami vs. Kenzuko: remember Kenzuko having H1 allows them to self bless, whereas Ujigami can't. Ujigami cost earth gems while kenzuko cost pearls, which is a mark in the favor of Ujigami. I'd be tempted to use them in matched pairs so the kenzuko can bless them both while the Ujigami provides some better defense with his awe and keeps cost down since you only spent e on him.

You could seriously play Jomon as a bless nation and rush conjuration. Bonus: one of your sacreds is pretty decent anyway.

Speaking of: Units
Aka-Oni are good, but they aren't the only unit worth hiring.

Go-Hatamoto have the 8 damage no-dashi instead of a katana, and so are substantially better at killing heavily armored targets. They are only mm1, however, but they definitely have a place. He also has heavier armor than the aka-oni, so will be better at absorbing archer fire and cavalry charges.

For real heavy armor killing, your go-to unit is the Yamabushi. In addition to being sacred (so can benefit from a bless, incidental or major), he has a glaive giving him a 10 base damage weapon. Stack on top of that a good attack rating and he'll carve up most opposition. As a bonus, he's relatively low resource cost compared to go-hatamoto and aka-oni. Since he's cap only, in a pinch you can use the glaive wielding samurai for your glaive needs.

Ashigaru are cheap chaff and also have a length 5 weapon. Note master shugenja have decent odds at N2. Panic spam + length 5 weapons could equal a lot of repelling fun. I could certainly see hiring them, especially since you can mass them quickly.

Your cavalry are also quite decent, although they probably will see more use to fill specific needs for flankers or lance-strikers than as something you build normally.

Useless units: katana samurai, samurai archer, o-ban

The katana samurai is strictly worse than the aka-oni. The o-ban is strictly worse than the go-hatamoto (including in r cost, which is weird). The samurai archer costs too many resources for an archer unit, and is significantly worse stat-wise than the melee units you'll use, so can't even shine in a hybrid roll (unlike dai-bakemono for Shinuyama).