From starkly rendered waves crashing over a shoulder to a stern samurai warrior wielding a sword on one’s back, the striking designs expressed in Japanese tattoos are among the most iconic in the ...

For Horimitsu, the sound of needles painting skin is a soft, rhythmic scratching, like a solitary cricket - "sha, sha, sha". For 30 years he has tattooed by hand in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, needing nothing ...

Calves bulging and back rippling with sinewy muscles, Du Xing – a bandit in the Chinese martial arts novel “Water Margin” – moves towards a precipice. His arms are raised overhead, clutching a massive ...

Black is a color you won’t find on the walls of Ron Sugano’s tattoo parlor in the upmarket Meguro district of south-west Tokyo, where quaint geometric houses line quiet streets. Also absent are the ...

When Mana Izumi got her first tattoo at 18, she wasn't trying to rebel or shatter any taboos -- just copy Japanese pop diva Namie Amuro's beach-bronze "surfer chick" look. In Japan, where tattoos have ...

On Tuesday, a meeting was held by Japan’s House of Councilors Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense. Among the topics discussed: tattoos. Japanese society has traditionally taken a dim view of ...