Do Japanese People Really Hate Tattoos?

If you have tattoos, you may have heard a few things that make you nervous about visiting Japan.

Tattoos don’t have a very good image in Japan.

Some hot springs don’t allow people with tattoos.

Japanese people may find tattoos intimidating.

None of these things are completely wrong.

But as someone who has lived in Japan all my life, I feel that simply saying “Japanese people don’t like tattoos” misses something important.

Especially if you’re a foreign visitor.

The Same Tattoo Isn’t Always Seen the Same Way

There is something I’ve noticed for a long time.

In Japan, tattoos on Japanese people still sometimes become a subject of debate.

A tattoo on a Japanese celebrity or athlete may attract attention. On social media, you’ll see people arguing that getting a tattoo is a personal choice, while others say it still creates a bad impression in Japan.

But I rarely see the same kind of debate about tattoos on foreigners.

That doesn’t mean no Japanese person dislikes tattoos on foreigners.

But when Japanese people see a tattoo on a Japanese person and one on a foreign visitor, I think many of us don’t necessarily see them as the same thing in the first place.

Why?

To understand that, it helps to know a little about how irezumi—the Japanese word traditionally associated with tattooing—came to be seen in Japan.

Tattoos Have a Complicated History in Japan

Marking the body with permanent designs is not something new to Japan.

Indigenous peoples in Japan also had their own tattoo traditions with meanings specific to their cultures.

In the 1700s, tattooing was used in some parts of Japan as a punishment to identify criminals. At the same time, decorative tattooing, known as horimono, developed among craftsmen, firefighters and other groups as an expression of style and pride.

Then, in the late 1800s, the Japanese government prohibited tattooing.

Even after the prohibition was lifted following World War II, ordinary Japanese people did not suddenly start getting tattoos.

Tattooing had spent a long time outside mainstream society, while becoming strongly associated with the yakuza and other parts of the underworld.

Movies and television repeatedly reinforced the image of yakuza members with elaborate traditional Japanese tattoos covering their backs.

Over time, a very powerful association developed in Japan:

Irezumi → Yakuza → Dangerous people

But most Japanese people don’t know this history in detail.

We don’t look at a tattoo and consciously think, “I’m uncomfortable with this because tattooing was prohibited in the 1800s.”

But we don’t have to know the history for the social attitudes created by that history to remain.

I think that’s an important part of understanding how tattoos are perceived in Japan today.

So Why Can Tattoos on Foreigners Feel Different?

This part comes from my own experience as a Japanese person.

When I see a tattoo on a foreigner’s arm, I don’t immediately think of the yakuza.

Maybe it’s fashion.

Maybe it has an important personal meaning.

Maybe it’s completely normal in that person’s country.

I naturally see it as something that belongs to a different cultural context.

And I don’t think this way of seeing it is particularly unusual in Japan.

When a Japanese person sees irezumi on another Japanese person, the history and imagery surrounding tattooing within Japanese society can unconsciously come with it.

When we see a tattoo on a foreigner, there is much less reason to place that person in the same cultural context.

That may explain something that can seem contradictory from the outside: someone can be uncomfortable with tattoos in a Japanese context without having the same reaction to a tattoo on a foreign visitor.

In Japan, “Irezumi” and “Tattoo” Can Feel Like Different Things

Japanese society is changing too.

Especially among younger people, tattoos seem to be increasingly familiar as fashion and personal expression rather than something connected only to the older image of irezumi.

Japanese people now regularly see tattoos on international musicians, athletes, actors and people on social media.

And there’s something interesting about the language itself.

Japanese has older words such as irezumi (入れ墨) and shisei (刺青), while the English word “tattoo” has also been adopted directly into Japanese as tatū (タトゥー).

If you look only at the finished result, they may appear to be the same thing: permanent designs on someone’s skin.

But culturally, Japanese people don’t necessarily perceive them as the same thing.

Irezumi carries imagery created within Japanese history, including its strong association with the yakuza and the underworld.

Tattoo, on the other hand, entered modern Japanese culture with a different background—international culture, fashion and personal expression.

So perhaps we aren’t looking only at what is on someone’s skin.

When the cultural background is included, irezumi is irezumi, and tattoo is tattoo.

A tattoo on a foreign visitor is more likely to be understood as something belonging to a cultural context outside Japan’s traditional idea of irezumi.

And today, even when Japanese people themselves get tattoos, I feel that younger generations are increasingly likely to see them through this newer idea of “tattoo culture” rather than only through the older image of irezumi.

Perhaps that’s one reason tattoos remain such a complicated subject in Japan: both ways of seeing them now exist in the same society.

But Personal Attitudes and Facility Rules Are Different Things

This is important if you’re actually traveling in Japan.

Japanese people may barely react to your tattoos while you’re walking around a city, riding a train or eating at a restaurant.

But you may still be refused entry to some hot springs, public baths, swimming pools or gyms.

That can seem contradictory.

But it makes more sense if you separate two things:

How an individual Japanese person sees your tattoo

and

The rules Japanese facilities have about tattoos.

Many of these rules developed within Japan’s long-standing wariness toward irezumi.

They don’t necessarily distinguish between a large traditional Japanese tattoo on a Japanese person and a small fashion tattoo on a foreign traveler.

That’s why you can experience something that seems strange:

Nobody cared about your tattoo on the street, but the onsen wouldn’t let you in.

That doesn’t necessarily mean:

“Japanese people dislike your tattoo.”

So, Do Japanese People Really Hate Tattoos?

Let’s return to the original question.

Do Japanese people hate tattoos?

I don’t think the answer is a simple yes.

Among younger generations, tattoos are increasingly being seen as fashion and personal expression.

At the same time, old rules concerning tattoos still remain at places such as hot springs.

At first, that can look a little contradictory.

But once you consider the background, it isn’t quite so strange.

Japan’s traditional idea of irezumi and the modern idea of tattoo that arrived from overseas have existed in Japanese society with different histories and different cultural meanings.

So I don’t think Japanese people are looking only at the design on someone’s skin.

Who is wearing it, and what cultural world does it come from?

We may be making that distinction without even consciously realizing it.

If you’re a foreign visitor with tattoos, it’s still worth checking the rules before visiting places such as hot springs.

But those rules and the way Japanese people actually see you—and your tattoos—are not necessarily the same thing.

“Japan doesn’t like tattoos.”

There’s some truth behind that idea.

But it doesn’t quite explain how Japanese people see tattoos today.