/cgl/ - Cosplay & EGL

>>9969170
>they're still illegal in japan, right?
Yes and no. It's not illigal, but you need to have a doctors degree to set tattoos which obviously most artist don't have. It's illegal to do business with gokudō tho, but no one needs to know your job if you make an appointment, and what the police doesn't know... In fact, already when it was still illigal the governments let's a lot pass on tattoos because of the tourists, unless they know of active dealing with gokudō.

>prevalent body modification culture
It's okay to have body modifications, at least compared to tattoos. It's bad more because you should be "normal" and because Buddist teachings (but that last one isn't really a huge issue with how most Japanese don't care that much for religion). Long history, but here's the short, simplified version. It once started as something nice. Then got used to mark criminals. Then went back and forth between art and criminal mark, then became illigal because the Japanese didn't want to look to weird to Westeners, then the gokudō made it their trademark, it became legal again but still holds many stigmas up to today. Funfact, gokudō get's less and less tattoos because and streetfashion get's it more and more, but the stigma doesn't really change. Also, traditional tattoo and modern tattoo sometimes seem like to different cultures, where traditional have very different values from Western tattoo culture, seeing it as something personal and see a beauty in the fact it's hidden to all beside those closest to you (among many differences), and modern like to show off more like Western tattoo culture.

I really like this conversation. Hate how I'm getting out of pictures. I don't often get to talk about my interest for tradition tattoos and organised crime XD.