Tattooed Japanese defy social taboo that links skin art to criminality, and hope inked foreign athletes at Tokyo Olympics spur acceptance

Shodai Horiren got her first tattoo as a lark on a trip to Australia nearly three decades ago. Now, tattooed head to foot, even on her shaven scalp, she is one of Japan’s most renowned traditional tattoo artists.“Your house gets old, your parents die, you break up with a lover, kids grow and go,” said Horiren, 52, at her studio just north of Tokyo. “But a tattoo is with you until you’re cremated and in your grave. That’s the appeal.”Horiren belongs to a proud, growing tribe of Japanese ink…

from South China Morning Post https://ift.tt/37Z95Uf