Hatsuo Royama was born in Saitama, just north of Tokyo, in 1952. Inspired by a country-wide boom in popularity of celebrity fighters and wrestlers, he traveled to Ikebukuro at the age of 15 and entered Mas Oyama's legendary "Oyama Dojo" where his Kyokushin Karate was being born.
Having trained there at the birthplace of Mas Oyama's Kyokushin, Royama was one of a very few of Mas Oyama's students to still be closely affiliated with Mas Oyama's organization from so close to the beginning all the way until Mas Oyama's death in 1994.