Drawings from long ago in Japan: Irezumi

My passed years there. :))

Real tattoos are fascinating of course, they are absolute art pieces, unfortunately often wrongly understood by either Mac Arthur and his puritan staffs after WW2 , and, even actually by a part of moralist extremists in Japan.

Now the Yakuza's symbol, tattoos had been worn in the past by other populations such as ancient Japan bushi (samurai) it was a way to bring fear in the ennemy (a psychological weapon I may say); it was also, (more recently) still the mark of Temples/Shrines builders and traditional architects.
Yooki's father was the sixth generation of such a Temples architects-builders family. (Note: Yooki is my wife for now 30 year and is not tattoed, that's another subject.)

I personnaly appreciate, the japanese way concerning IREZUMI. It's a whole concept developping with time on the skin, not a patchwork of separated stamp sized tattoos. It's for life, even leaving you've to remember who you were. It's a proof of courage, as all was (and, is still is, hand made) traditional needles pushing the ink deep under the skin, no electric ones working shallow.
It's overall, belonging to a community, to a profession (true also for Yakuza), to be out of a world to belong to another one.

It's a rule of life, not a fashion!