In Ohtani's blue Dodger hometown, a shrine to his baseball talent

OSHU, Japan — Apparently Hair and Spa in Oshu, a city in northern Japan, is filled with Dodgers memorabilia, but owner Hironobu Kanno insists that's not the case Really a Dodgers fan.

It was just after 9 a.m. and Kanno, who is 63 and wears a flowing blonde ponytail, had just rushed to his store to tune in to Game 4 of the World Series.

Of course, like the rest of Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani's hometown, he hoped today would be the day the LA franchise would defeat its historic rival, the Yankees.

Still, he knows his loyalty lies not with the Dodgers but with Ohtani, the Oshu native who has taken Major League Baseball by storm and seen the city rally behind him in a way only one can Hometown can.

What if Ohtani magically joined the Yankees tomorrow? Would Kanno trade in his Dodgers blue for Yankee stripes?

“Of course,” Kanno said without pausing.

In reality, Ohtani has a 10-year contract with the Dodgers, meaning Kanno's loyalty does too.

Under a rule he instituted for the World Series, every single barber in his shop, including his wife, Satsuki, tended to customers while wearing a blue Dodgers jersey.

His two customers also watched the game – whether they liked it or not – because Kanno had installed monitors at every seat years ago so that they wouldn't miss any of Ohtani's games.

This seemed to be a good sign so far.

On the main television in the waiting area, Freddie Freeman had hit another home run in the first inning, prompting Satsuki and Keiko, one of the stylists, to shout “Freeman!”

The interior of the store is only part salon and mostly museum. It is filled floor to ceiling with Ohtani-related items that Kanno acquired over 11 years and for nearly $100,000, including autographed baseballs, dozens of bobbleheads and figurines, jerseys, hats, soccer cleats, batting gloves and a life-size cutout of Ohtani his Dodgers uniform.

His favorite item is a hat signed by the entire Japanese national team, led by Ohtani, that defeated the U.S. team in the World Baseball Classic last year. This is priceless.

“I have a secret connection on the team that helped me achieve this,” he said. “I can’t really talk about it.”

And last year alone, around 1,000 fans – Japanese and foreign – visited the store to see it all for themselves, some with religious awe, others with tingling anticipation.

One particularly dedicated fan – a young Taiwanese woman – comes by every year or so to check out the new additions to the collection.

On her final trip, she asked Kanno to give her the exact haircut that Mamiko Tanaka, Ohtani's wife, wore.

“Yeah, I gave it to her,” Kanno said with a laugh, pointing to a picture of Ohtani and Tanaka hanging on the wall.

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Kanno began his collection in 2013 with a ball signed by Ohtani that he received at a game he attended when the Dodgers superstar – then just 18 years old – was playing for his first professional team: the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters Japanese league.

It was a dark time for Oshu, where Kanno was born and raised.

Bobbleheads are part of the Hironobu Kanno collection in Oshu in northeastern Japan, the Dodger star's hometown.

(Eugene Hoshiko/Associated Press)

Two years earlier, the Tohoku region of Japan, where Oshu is located, was hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake, which killed more than 19,000 people and triggered the tsunami that caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

For the region's desperate population, the news that a local baseball prodigy had made it to Japan's major leagues was a balm.

“It felt like Ohtani represented the hope of the people of the region,” Kanno said.

The signed ball had arrived just as Kanno was about to make a new start in life.

As a young man, Kanno was a successful hairdresser with an all-day work ethic, winning international competitions that took him on business trips around the world, and then pursuing a career with a major beauty company.

But at some point in his late 40s, Satsuki had told him: “You just work, your family is falling apart.” We have money, but we are not happy. You’re losing what’s important to you and us.”

Shattered by the realization that she was right, Kanno left his high-flying life behind and opened Shine Hair and Spa in 2010.

“I wanted to settle down in my own space in my hometown, where I can chat freely with people and live at a slower pace than before,” he said.

And so the museum was born.

Hironobu Kanno, a representative of a private fan club for Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers, speaks at his beauty salon in Oshu, northeastern Japan, Ohtani's hometown.

(Eugene Hoshiko/Associated Press)

Oshu, a semi-rural city with around 114,000 residents, is not exactly a center of action. Sometimes the streets of the city, known for its cattle ranching, apple orchards and iron processing, can be so quiet that it feels like a ghost town. But Kanno's collection has connected him surprisingly well to the world.

His contacts include former player and current Dodgers broadcaster José Mota.

“We chat online all the time,” Kanno said, pulling out his cell phone as evidence.

The day before, Kanno Mota had sent a few selfies of him in a Dodger-blue crowd at a World Series viewing party that the city of Oshu was hosting at a local auditorium.

“This is beautiful,” Mota had texted back.

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It was the third inning of Game 4 and Ohtani, who had partially dislocated his shoulder in Game 2, was at the plate.

“His swing is better than yesterday,” Kanno noted.

A pop flies out.

“Ahhhhh,” he moaned. “Maybe his injury is still bothering him.”

Like many in Oshu, Kanno feels like she has protected Ohtani in a way that perhaps only the people of this city can.

Few outsiders know, for example, that Ohtani returns every year or so to visit his parents.

Many long-time locals know when he does it, but there is an unwritten code of silence that prohibits the media from revealing this – or his parents' address.

“For example, Oshu people know which restaurant Ohtani’s family goes to when Ohtani is here,” Kanno said.

“But they don’t tell the media that so Ohtani feels safe when he’s home.”

It is a sacrosanct rule for Kanno.

Sometimes journalists ask Kanno if he can give them a clue about where Ohtani's parents live. When that happens, Kanno sends her away.

And while he could find a way to ask Ohtani's parents to help him get their son's blessing for his ultimate goal of establishing an official Ohtani museum in the city, he refuses to stoop that low.

“The city of Oshu wants to support him in a natural way,” he said.

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By the eighth inning, a customer had canceled her standing appointment with Kanno so he could watch the game slip away from the Dodgers.

After a grand slam by the Yankees' Anthony Volpe in the third that left Kanno hanging his head and groaning, New York piled up runs to make it 11-4 and seemed determined to avoid a sweep .

Hironobu Kanno began collecting Ohtani memorabilia shortly after making a major change in his life.

(Eugene Hoshiko/Associated Press)

“I have to give it to the Yankees today,” he said.

Although Kanno was confident the Dodgers would ultimately win the series, he knows the Pride of Oshu City is destined for more than just this one championship anyway.

“Ohtani wants to be the best player to ever play the game. It’s a never-ending journey for him,” he said.

And what Kanno appreciates about Ohtani more than the accolades is the fact that he seems to have figured out something about life that the stylist himself didn't realize until later in life.

“Even at his young age, Ohtani knows what is necessary for his life, what his priorities are,” Kanno said.

From the clutter of magazines and Ohtani literature scattered on the coffee table in the waiting area, Kanno pulled out a copy of Ohtani's Mandala Chart, a list of life goals arranged in interconnecting squares that depicted the baseball phenom as a student written in his second year of high school.

In addition to the baseball goals, such as working on “perfecting the forkball” or “strengthening the core,” there are the qualities Kanno relearned in Oshu: “sensitivity,” “caring,” and becoming someone who trusts and Deserves love.

Special correspondent Momo Nagayama contributed to this report.