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<html><body><div><p>They came, they saw, they clipped.</p><p>Inside the hallowed ring at Tokyo's Korakuen Hall -- the boxing venue at the 1964 Summer Olympics, now a mecca for combat sports -- barbers from across Asia gathered on July 14 for the second World Barber Classic, celebrating the culture and craft of the male haircut.</p><p>In sweltering conditions, 13 competitors chosen through a series of regional qualifiers in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia took to the stage in intense half-hour heats. Armed with scissors and combs, they worked swiftly under the watchful eyes of a panel of internationally renowned judges, presenting their models to a sometimes rowdy audience of friends, family and fellow barbers.</p><p>By late afternoon, only three finalists remained. At the end of the night veteran barber Mr. Sasaki, founder of Spinner Barbearia, in Japan's Shiga prefecture, north of Kyoto, celebrated victory in tears in front of supporters who had come to see him improve on his third-place finish in the 2020 inaugural event.</p><p>Second was Park Chi Guk, known as V, representing South Korea's Mancave Barbershop chain. Shoma Sugimura, a qualifier from Japan's Kanto region, finished in third place. Sugimura is a head barber at Mr. Brothers Cut Club, a Japanese chain whose parent company organized the event.</p><p>In the 155 years since Japan's first Western-style barbershop opened in the port city of Yokohama, local barbers have drawn continual inspiration from their American and European counterparts -- first serving sailors and traveling merchants, later offering savvy Japanese customers the styles they had seen in films and magazines.</p><p>As perms, mushroom cuts and inexpensive train-station salons rose in popularity, American-style barbershops found a firm place in modern Japanese culture, a testament to time and tradition -- as if Johnny Cash or James Dean might walk in at any moment.</p><p>In recent years, the number of barbershops in Japan has fallen -- from 142,544 in 1995 to 110,297 in 2023, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. But the industry is fighting back, hoping that events such as the World Barber Classic will encourage aspiring barbers to adopt the latest techniques and equipment while demonstrating that barbershops are places where customers from across the world can feel at home.</p>    
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