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For most of the last century, Japanese tattooing lived a kind of double life. Irezumi, or wabori, carried centuries of technique and symbolism – full body suits built from folklore and hand poked over hundreds of hours – and it also carried a stigma heavy enough to keep most of that work hidden under long sleeves. That's starting to shift, and Jimbocho's Komiyama Tokyo is marking the moment with a new show.
‘The Japanese Tattoo’, presented by Komiyama and the culture site Sabukaru, opened on July 4 and is running through July 20 at Komiyama Tokyo G. Rather than treating tattoos as finished images to admire on a wall, the exhibition builds its case around the culture behind them: the techniques passed hand to hand between master and apprentice, the ritual of the studio, the communities that form around the craft, and the histories people choose to carry on their skin.
The show centres on three tattooers spanning different generations of the same tradition.
Horihide helped introduce Japanese tattooing to the rest of the world, building relationships with foundational Western tattoo figures like Sailor Jerry and Don Ed Hardy along the way. Asakusa Horikazu represents the technical precision and cultural gravity of wabori at its most exacting. And Horicho II carries forward the respected Horicho lineage, still committed to tebori, the hand poking method that predates the tattoo machine entirely.
Curating all of it is Manami ‘Maki’ Okazaki, a cultural researcher and journalist who has spent decades documenting Japan's subcultures, tattooing very much included. Her access here isn't casual. It's built on years of relationships and a personal archive most outsiders would never get close to; the same reporting that recently became her own book, also titled The Japanese Tattoo, which digs into the same world of horishi masters dedicating their lives to the craft.
That access matters, because Japanese tattoo culture has historically been guarded for a reason. Wabori's roots trace back to the Edo period (1603–1868), when it became one of the few ways commoners could push back against a rigid, hierarchical society. Its more recent association with the Yakuza came later, and it's part of what's kept the art form at arm's length from the mainstream for so long.
That's been changing fast, with tattoos increasingly showing up on people who have nothing to do with organised crime, and the culture is only now getting the kind of documentation and institutional attention this exhibition represents.
‘The Japanese Tattoo’ runs July 4–20 at Komiyama Tokyo G.
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