'I will name my son the first thing I see when I open my eyes.' These are the words that were spoken by Mrs. Kawaru Kazane one spring afternoon in an operating theatre. Little did she know how much she would regret saying that as she opened her eyes a little later to the sound of her newborn crying. There was a toy rooster that one of her aunts had given to her as a gift for the boy sitting on a nearby table, and when she opened her eyes, she was looking right at it.

​

Young Ashiro Ondori had no knowledge about the special circumstances of his name, because he had somehow never seen a chicken before (not even of the cooked variety!). That all changed in 2009 on a family visit to his grandparents' house in Kyoto for New Year's, where he saw his namesake for the first time ever. Rather than doing what you or I would do and decide to change his name as soon as possible, he began to display an interest in the study of chickens, which, as he puts it, has never stopped growing since that day.

​

In his teenage years, Ondori went to Edamame High School, where he was made fun of for his name and his obsession with chickens. Indignant, he became a delinquent, dying and styling his hair into the iconic blue mohawk that he continues to wear to this day. He became known as the Basan of Osaka, quickly establishing his reign over every high school in Western Japan. However, an unfortunate encounter with the Osakan Chief of Police outside his local tattoo parlour put an end to his reign as quickly as it had begun.

​

After being expelled and barely escaping imprisonment via bail, he found another interest, this time in in otaku culture. Following in his father's footsteps, he became a widely-respected online blogger (although his father's blog was about Japanese baseball and his was about anime, manga, and video games).