Born in 2001, Sakurai spent 11 years of his childhood in the United States, gaining firsthand exposure to baseball and developing a global mindset from an early age. At 15, he launched a baseball media platform that organically grew to over 83,000 followers, generating revenue through advertising and brand partnerships.

In 2020, he entered Doshisha University, and by 2022, co-founded Katana Japan with Riki Yamazaki, not simply to make gloves, but to build a globally recognized Japanese brand.

Driven by a deep belief in the beauty, precision, and integrity of Japanese craftsmanship, Sakurai aims to bring Japanese brands and services to the international stage, where they have long been underrepresented. Katana has operated exclusively through a direct-to-consumer model, with zero wholesale and no advertising spend.

By 2023, within just one year he scaled Katana into a six-figure brand, entirely through organic growth. Today, Katana is trusted by over 1,000 glove users, including a growing number of professional athletes worldwide.

With hands-on experience in international marketing and brand building since the age of 15, Sakurai continues to champion the rise of Japanese excellence on a global scale, one product, one story at a time.