The Meiji government banned tattooing in 1872, embarrassed by what foreign visitors might think of Japanese men covered in elaborate ink. The ban didn't end the tradition. It handed it exclusively to the one group for whom illegality was never much of a deterrent. The Yakuza adopted irezumi as a badge of honour, a declaration of commitment so painful and expensive to earn that wearing it became proof of who you were. A full bodysuit could take two hundred hours and the cost of a house, applied by hand, one tap at a time, by a master who'd spent years just cleaning the studio before he was allowed near a needle. Then the same tattoo that once made a Yakuza member untouchable became the thing that got him identified, tracked, and caught. A fugitive boss living quietly in Thailand for over a decade was identified within days when a stranger posted a photograph of two old men playing checkers in a park.
More info: nippon.com — search \"irezumi history\" metropolisjapan.com — Horiyoshi III interview
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