Born in 1569 into the Oba family, a branch of the Satake clan. After his lord Satake Yoshinobu was transferred from Hitachi to Akita in 1602, Yoshinari was entrusted with Odate Castle in 1610 as a defense against the Nanbu and Tsugaru clans, receiving a stipend of 5,000 koku as the first hereditary castellan of Odate under Akita Domain. His descendants (later the Odate-Satake family) continued to guard the domain's northern frontier from Odate until the Meiji Restoration. He died in 1634.

As a branch of the Satake clan entrusted with defending the domain's frontier, he founded a steady lineage of hereditary castellans.

As founder of the Oba (later Odate-Satake) family of hereditary castellans, his line upheld the governance of Akita Domain's northern frontier for nearly 270 years. The site of Odate Castle is now preserved as Katsuragi Park.