OSHU, Japan — Appears Hair and Spa in Oshu, a metropolis in northern Japan, is crammed full with Dodgers memorabilia, however proprietor Hironobu Kanno is adamant that he isn’t actually a Dodgers fan.
It was simply previous 9 a.m. and Kanno, who’s 63 and sports activities a flowing blond ponytail, had simply hurried to his store to tune in to Game 4 of the World Series.
Like the remainder of Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani’s hometown, he hoped, after all, that right this moment was the day that the L.A. franchise would full a sweep of its historic rivals, the Yankees.
Even so, he’s clear that his loyalties lie not with the Dodgers however with Ohtani, the Oshu native who has taken Main League Baseball by storm and seen the town rally behind him in a method solely a hometown can.
If Ohtani have been to magically be part of the Yankees tomorrow? Would Kanno commerce out his Dodgers blue for Yankee stripes?
Hironobu Kanno is surrounded by his assortment of Ohtani memorabilia at his magnificence salon in Oshu, Japan. Kanno began the gathering with a signed ball in 2013, when Ohtani was enjoying in a Japanese league.
(Eugene Hoshiko / Related Press)
“After all,” Kanno stated, with out pause.
In actuality, Ohtani is on a 10-year contract with the Dodgers, that means Kanno’s loyalty is, too.
Per a rule he has instituted for the World Collection, each single one of many hairdressers in his store, together with his spouse, Satsuki, was tending to clients whereas sporting a blue Dodgers jersey.
His two clients have been additionally watching the sport — whether or not they prefer it or not — as a result of Kanno years in the past had screens put in at each seat with the intention to keep away from lacking any of Ohtani’s video games.
This, one thus far, appeared to bode nicely.
On the primary tv within the ready space, Freddie Freeman had hit one other first inning homer, making Satsuki and Keiko, one of many stylists, cry out “Freeman!”
The within of the enterprise is just half salon and largely museum. It’s stacked ground to ceiling with Ohtani-related objects that Kanno has spent 11 years and near $100,000 buying, together with signed baseballs, dozens of bobbleheads and collectible figurines, jerseys, hats, cleats, batting gloves and a life-size cutout of Ohtani in his Dodgers uniform.
His favourite piece is a hat signed by all the Ohtani-led Japanese nationwide crew that defeated the U.S. squad in final 12 months’s World Baseball Basic. That one is priceless.
“I’ve a secret connection on the crew who helped me get this,” he stated. “I can’t actually speak about it.”
And within the final 12 months alone, round 1,000 followers — Japanese and international — have visited the store to see all of this for themselves, some with spiritual reverence and others with fizzy pleasure.
One significantly devoted fan — a younger Taiwanese girl — visits yearly or so, to ooh and ah on the new additions to the gathering.
On her most up-to-date journey she requested Kanno to provide her the precise haircut sported by Mamiko Tanaka, Ohtani’s spouse.
“Sure, I gave it to her,” Kanno stated with a chuckle, gesturing at an image of Ohtani and Tanaka hanging on the wall.
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Kanno began his assortment in 2013, with a ball signed by Ohtani he bought at a sport he attended when the Dodgers celebrity — then simply 18 years previous — was enjoying for his first skilled crew: the Japanese league’s Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.
It had been a darkish time for Oshu, the place Kanno had been born and raised.
Bobbleheads make up a part of Hironobu Kanno’s assortment in Oshu, northeastern Japan, the Dodger star’s hometown.
(Eugene Hoshiko / Related Press)
Two years earlier, the Tohoku area of Japan, the place Oshu sits, had been hit by the Nice East Japan Earthquake, which killed greater than 19,000 folks and triggered the tsunami that precipitated the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe.
For the devastated folks of the area, information of an area baseball wunderkind making it in Japan’s massive leagues was a balm.
“It felt like Ohtani represented the hope of the area’s folks,” Kanno stated.
The signed ball had come when Kanno, too, was within the course of of creating a contemporary begin in life.
As a younger man, Kanno had been a profitable hairstylist with a grind-all-day work ethic, profitable worldwide competitions that took him on enterprise journeys everywhere in the world, adopted by a company profession at a significant magnificence firm.
However someday in his late 40s, Satsuki had advised him: “All you do is figure, your loved ones is falling aside. We have now cash, however we’re not comfortable. You’re dropping what’s necessary to you and us.”
Shattered by the belief that she was proper, Kanno left behind his high-flying life and opened Appears Hair and Spa in 2010.
“I wished to quiet down in my very own house in my hometown, the place I can chat to folks casually and dwell at a slower tempo than earlier than,” he stated.
And so the museum was born.
Hironobu Kanno, consultant of a non-public fan membership of Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers, speaks at his magnificence salon in Oshu, northeastern Japan, the hometown of Ohtani.
(Eugene Hoshiko / Related Press)
Oshu, a semi-rural metropolis of round 114,000, isn’t precisely a hub of motion. Typically the streets within the city identified for cattle ranching, apple orchards and ironworking might be so quiet it seems like a ghost city. However Kanno’s assortment has made him surprisingly well-connected to the broader world.
Amongst his contacts is former participant and present Dodgers broadcaster José Mota.
“We chat on-line on a regular basis,” Kanno stated, pulling out his cellphone as proof.
The day earlier than, Kanno had despatched Mota just a few selfies of him in a Dodger blue crowd at a World Collection viewing occasion the town of Oshu had hosted at an area auditorium.
“That’s lovely,” Mota had texted again.
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It was the third inning of Game 4 and Ohtani, who had partially dislocated his shoulder in Game 2, was standing on the plate.
“His swing is healthier than yesterday,” Kanno noticed.
A pop fly out.
“Ahhhhh,” he groaned. “Possibly his harm remains to be bothering him.”
Like many in Oshu, Kanno feels protecting of Ohtani in a method maybe solely the folks of this city can.
Few outsiders might know, for instance, that Ohtani comes again yearly or so to go to his dad and mom.
Most of the longtime locals are conscious when he does, however there may be an unwritten code of silence to not reveal this — or his dad and mom’ handle — to the media.
“For instance, folks from Oshu know what restaurant Ohtani’s household goes to each time Ohtani is right here,” Kanno stated.
“However they don’t inform this to the media in order that Ohtani will really feel protected when he’s residence.”
It’s a rule that’s sacrosanct to Kanno.
Typically, journalists will ask Kanno if he can tip them off to the place Ohtani’s dad and mom dwell. When that occurs, Kanno sends them away.
And though he might discover a technique to ask Ohtani’s dad and mom to assist him get their son’s blessing for his final purpose of creating an official Ohtani museum within the metropolis, he refuses to stoop so low.
“Oshu metropolis needs to help him in a pure method,” he stated.
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By the eighth inning, a buyer had canceled her perm appointment with Kanno, permitting him to observe the sport slip away from the Dodgers.
Following a grand slam by the Yankees’ Anthony Volpe within the third, which made Kanno hold his head and groan, New York was piling on the runs to make the rating 11-4, seemingly hell-bent on avoiding a sweep.
Hironobu Kanno began amassing Ohtani memorabilia quickly after he made a significant change in his personal life.
(Eugene Hoshiko / Related Press)
“I’ve to provide it to the Yankees right this moment,” he stated.
Though Kanno was assured that the Dodgers would find yourself taking the collection, he is aware of that the Satisfaction of Oshu Metropolis is destined for extra than simply this one championship, anyway.
“Ohtani needs to be the best participant to ever play the sport. It’s an infinite journey for him,” he stated.
And greater than the accolades, what Kanno respects most about Ohtani is that he appears to have found out one thing about life that the stylist himself solely realized later in life.
“Even at his younger age, Ohtani is aware of what is critical for his life, what his priorities are,” Kanno stated.
From the jumble of magazines and Ohtani literature strewn about on the espresso desk within the ready space, Kanno produced a duplicate of Ohtani’s Mandala Chart, a listing of life objectives organized in interconnected squares that the baseball phenom wrote as a sophomore in highschool.
Alongside the baseball objectives, like working to “good the forkball” or “strengthen the physique core,” are the qualities that Kanno has been relearning in Oshu: “sensitivity,” “caring,” changing into somebody worthy of belief and love.
Particular correspondent Momo Nagayama contributed to this report.
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