I happened across this pic - I know that historically in Japan, tattooing was associated with criminality/Yakuza, but is this sign reflective of current Japanese practice/attitude at public baths? What's the reasoning? That is, are they just trying to keep out people whom they consider undesirable, or is there some perceived concern with the tattoos themselves?

this had been joked in many movies. Always when a big bully with tatoo step in the room, this make others doesn't feel good and feel uneasy

The negative stigma towards tattoos are still there sometimes, depending on where you go, even if it's a gaijin who's obviously not a mobster. A friend of mine who was living there about five years ago had some problems at a couple of restaurants. Another friend went to a water park and was given a big bandage to slap over the bull on his back.

I was told that a fad in the past couple of years has been for mothers to get their babies' names tattooed on their forearm. I think some pop singer was the first one to do it. When I was there in August I did see some more tattoos on people than previous years, more of them on women, but definitely not as many as you see in the USA.

Did you know that the tradition started because prisoners used to have their IDs tattooed on their upper arms, and after they got out they tattooed over to cover it up? Then when they ended up back in jail, they'd tattoo the number somewhere else, and when they got out it would be tattooed over in the new location, and so on and so on.

I read somewhere that in ancient Japan they would tattoo an armband on criminals, and add more rings for subsequent offenses, so tattooing for crimes seems to go back a long way there.

But, I am very surprised that this kind and level of prejudice (apparently against any sort of tattoo at all) continues in Japan even today. Imagine trying to bandage over every tat in a modern US water park!

This is pretty interesting. Tattoo culture is always cool though. I just watched "Eastern Promises" and it got me a bit interested in Russian prison tattoos as well.

It all makes me really respect a lot of the history and at the same time loath assholes who go get generic garbage and tramp-stamps.

During the 80's Mariel boatlift, Castro took the opportunity to empty his prisons and mental hospitals. (The practice was - "Yes, you can take your ancient and decrepit Tia Esperanza and Tio Umberto right back to Miami in your ChrisCraft, so long as you take this couple of dozen creepazoids back with you too.") So for a while, Miami-area police departments were all required to learn the 'language' of Cuban prison ink - Like Russian prisons, the Cuban tattoos revealed each prisoner's specialties. You still see the occasional older Cuban guy with the webs of his thumbs inked.

(Interestingly, many of the Marielito refugees ended up living in chic and fabulous South Beach. At that time, there had been a 10-year building moratorium in South Beach, anticipating a unified redevelopment in which they would finally tear down all the crummy, crumbling little Deco hotels and rebuild the whole area at once with shiny new condo towers. [One particularly boneheaded plan called for demolishing all of the buildings, replacing all the streets in South Beach with canals, having all traffic move by boat/gondolier, and becoming a 'tropical Venice.'] Because of the moratorium, no landlords put any $ into their properties for years, and the entire area went straight downhill. When Calvin Klein came down and did the first modelling shoots in South Beach in about '83, South Beach was an absolute slum, occupied only by Cuban criminals and Jewish retirees too poor to flee. Ultimately of course, irony prevailed -- It was this nutso building moratorium which itself prevented all the Deco gems from being demolished one by one, thus allowing them to survive long enough for the Deco to become fashionable.)

My friends and I were unable to get into any onsen in japan. We only tried a few times and I know there are some will let in westerners with tattoos but none the less.

I was told you can just cover them up until you get in but I felt that being disrespectful and didn't.

I'd end up looking like Boris Karloff in 'The Mummy'! . . .

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!

holy fuck that's nice, love the sparse use of colour

Japan is still not big with seeing tattoos as a normal thing yet. I wasn't able to go into a public pool cause I had tattoos. I also wasn't able to get into the hot springs so I gave up at going. It's slowly being recognized as a art form I believe, but It's still isn't seen like how we see it. And like Miami said, tattoos were used way back on criminals. Kinda like a black band on their arm so everyone knows the person was once a criminal.

Andy,
I'm not much of a tattoo fan, but that's seriously one of the nicest I've seen. Very artistic.

i plan on visiting japan one of these days and my friend who i plan on staying with told me to bring lots of long sleeve tees because of my tattoos. he told me i would frighten his mother.

Crap, I just booked my ticket. Well I don't think they really notice.

yeah me too

So I assume the earth crisis means this person is straight edge or a big fan of steel pulse. How this could happen to a sober person is beyond me.

Andy, your work is truly amazing.

earth crisis are fans of steel pulse. this guy is dutch and has been harassed to death by many messageboards. he did not show up to any of the earth crisis reunions even though earth crisis sent out email proclaiming "someone tell earth crisis face hes on the guestlist"

Now that is BEAUTIFUL!!!

man Earth Crisis face is the best!
I was serious before..when is the earth crisis show...were'nt they supposed to be playing again?

That is a great piece of work, I am hoping to get some more done one of these days.

Oh yeah, the health clubs are not good about ink here either, I got rejected because my back is not "smaller than palmsize".

Wow...fantastic Scary ! Reminds me of Filip Leu's work !

I love that the tattoos being exed out in the sign are something as innocuous as flowers rather than a skull with a snake through it biting a sword or something more threatening and typically offensive. NO PRETTY FLOWER TATTOOS!!!

he turned up to a bunch of shows for the terror euro tour. there are some photos of him with vogel and doug hahaha.

apparently he's a right wing asshole but i mean come on, check out those eyebrows - boy george much?

yeah, there's definately some serious waxing or something going on there.