Miracle romance at the plate.

When Shohei Ohtani heads to the plate at Dodger Stadium his usual walkup music is Lupe Fiasco’s “The Show Goes On.” Catchy enough tune, but it’s pretty clear that it was chosen mainly because “Show” and “Shohei” sound similar, which feels a little light on significance for the audio alert that the most famous athlete in the world is about to step into the batter’s box.

But on Tuesday night, with the Dodgers hosting the Miami Marlins in Los Angeles, there was a different song cued up for Ohtani’s walkup music, and it’s one of the most internationally famous songs from his home country of Japan. Take a listen in the video below.

Yep, that’s none other than “Moonlight Densetsu,” the opening theme for Sailor Moon! Why the switch? April 29 was Women’s Night at Dodgers Stadium, and as part of the festivities the players’ wives and girlfriends picked the walkup songs. Even though Ohtani’s wife Mamiko would have only been a few months old when Sailor Moon’s original TV run ended in Japan, the landmark magical girl anime has been a near-constant presence in the Japanese pop culture landscape thanks to reruns and remakes, and she’s apparently a big enough fan to make it her walkup music selection for her husband.

So how did Ohtani respond to the anime theme serenade?

By crushing the very first pitch thrown to him in the game, a 96-mile-an-hour-fastball from Marlin Sandy Alcantara. With the telltale crack of Ohtani’s bat serving as percussive post-“Moonlight Densetsu” punctuation and echoing through Chavez Ravine, Ohtani sent the ball flying down the right foul line and over the fence for a home run. As an added bonus, it was his first home run as a father, with the Ohtani household having recently welcomed their newborn daughter to the family and sharing the good news through an Instagram post.

Ohtani’s solo home run put the Dodgers on the board, but it was far from the last noise the team’s bats would make, as they went on to overwhelm the Marlins by a final score of 15 to 2. Between this and the Dodgers’ victory in their season opener where they got a pre-game greeting from Pikachu, it’s really starting to look like they should adopt a strategy of incorporating anime element into every game they play.

Sources: YouTube/MLB, Nikkan Sports
Top photo ©SoraNews24
Sailor Moon ©Naoko Takeuchi/PNP, Toei Animation
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Follow Casey on Twitter as he continues to smile at his home town and ’90s anime intersecting.