Tattoos and criminality

There may be a couple of reasons why Tebori and Yakuza are so closely related. In the mid-1800’s, Japan entered a phase of opening up to the world after years of isolation. The government at the time outlawed tattooing to “clean up” Japan’s image.


Why this would clean up their image is neither here or there, although if you ask me, it might have been because tattoos were associated with criminals, sailors and the poor classes in the West and Japan wanted to make a good impression to the new business partners. This meant that anyone with a tattoo was automatically an outlaw. The Yakuza, never being the ones to care about what society thought, made it their point to wear tattoos proudly, hence the association.


Another reason could be that tattoos were placed on slaves around 300AD, as a form of identification (as many other cultures did at the time). Hence, the association was made that people with tattoos=filth. I’ve read somewhere that the Yakuza are one of the few institutions in Japan that make no distinctions in class, color, gender, or ethnicity and frequently take in runaways and people who wouldn’t be given the time of day by anyone else. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine that Yakuza ranks at some point or other included people tattooed as punishment. Having a tattoo wasn’t stigma to them and, being the flamboyant characters they are, they might have adopted it as their “call card”. It’s funny then that many Yakuza members avoid getting tattooed to avoid recognition.