There does not seem to be a lot of info on bihous on the web . . .

==>>> toward what point???

hi ... welcome to GW ...

its a maple..

and pruning rules are not tree specific ...

will it straighten.. no ... but it will thicken.. and make it less apparent ... if it should live so long ...

as to the lower branches... well... you havent clearly defined your goal .. and until you ... you!!! .... define your goals ...

all that said... how about we give it a year or two.. BEFORE pruning.. plenty of time to define your goals ...

leaves are food making machines.. and on new transplants.... we want all those food making machines the tree has.. to get it ESTABLISHED ....

as president of WEIRDER THE BETTER CLUB .... the little kink in the trunk doesnt bother me ... if you wanted a straight trunk ... then perhaps you should not have bought this one .... hindsight is always so clear ... lol ..

anyway... lets focus on getting it established.. and work on defining your pruning goals...

and we help you when cutting time comes...

ken

ps: sometimes... using the latin name helps when searching the web ... google the common name.. then switch to the latin name, found in one of the links ....... many websites do not use the common names ....

I wouldn't go cutting on it much at this point, Japanese maples usually branch like this.

Cultivar has a twig end die-back problem here, I will probably pull mine out. Others have mentioned on the web similar difficulties with this one.