When Sakurai was alive, he was a youth living peacefully during the Roaring Twenties, but once the Great Depression set in, he became one of the many young men who lost their dreams and joined the army with hopes to improve their lives. Before joining though, he became acquainted with a girl named Chiharu at a local coffee shop he used to visit and was promised that she would wait for him until he returned. Eventually, he became a second lieutenant in the 801 Squadron of the 309th Naval Air Division of the Japanese Navy during the Second World War. At some point, his plane was shot down and crashed on Peleliu Island. It is believed that he died sometime afterward, with his skeleton being shown with a fatal injury to his head while still in his plane. His spirit became trapped in the Asura Realm of the Great Spirit, where he became obsessed with rebuilding his fallen Zero fighter plane in order to return to the defense of his country.
