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Tattooed girls' life in Japan

shizakura

後輩
19 Aug 2013
17
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If my Japanese boyfriend and me decided to marry next year,
I would stay with him in Japan; but I have some worries about tattoos.

Speaking about me, I have big, and also many not hideable large tattoos (arms, hands, chest up to lower neck etc.)

I actually still live in Europe and never got with these tattoos in trouble yet, but I heard in Japan there is a big problem with this.

Do I have to expect bad reactions from people?

And how is it about "odd" jobs, do they hire visibly tattooed people? (with odd jobs I mean, jobs like bar staff, dancer, night club worker, kyabakura etc.)
 
you'll have trouble at some onsen, probably, due to a blanket ban. Tattoos have a historical taboo that i think has lightened considerably, and now it's not too uncommon, especially for younger people, to have tattoos. It's got its own niche groups too, in which your tattoos will probably garner much positive attention.

You might get looks, but that's about it. Having tattoos shouldn't really factor in your concerns much :)
 
I see tattooed Japanese youth in Tokyo quite often, and they are very obviously not connected with the Yakuza. These days it is just a fashion statement.

That being said, I have a former coworker (Japanese) who got into the tattoo-as-subculture scene and with a couple of other coworkers got a couple of tattoos in easily hidden places. But the one guy got the habit pretty bad and eventually got so many that he could no longer conceal them and had to quit our company.

The standard onsen warning is vastly overblown, in my opinion. That problem is easily avoided by just not going to onsen. The onsen managers aren't going to hunt you down on the street and give you a hard time.
 
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