With a father and grandfather who were both completely bald, sports journalist Nobuya Kobayashi had always suspected that he would turn out the same way. Yet, when he actually started losing hair in his late 20s, he was shocked and found himself unable to accept his fate.
After trying a number of hair-regrowth tonics with no success, he decided his best option was to hide his condition by wearing a wig, but it only made his life even more difficult and troublesome.
This June, Kobayashi finally came out about his baldness in his book "Katsuraa no Himitsu (The Secret Life of a Katsuller)." Katsura means wig in Japanese, and Kobayashi coined the word "katsuller" to refer to wig-wearers.