Tattoos in Japan

Working on a History Channel show about the history of tattoos, I went to Japan and New Zealand to see what tattooing was all about in both of those places.

I took millions of photos and videos, so I'll condense it down to the highlights.

In Japan, we visited the world's busiest intersection in Shibuya:


We also stayed in some tiny hotels:


On our search for tattoo history, we visited Jikei University, which has a dried and mounted tattooed skin - preserved from a dead Yakuza in the 1930's. Kinda gruesome, but very very interesting. They were very nice to us and showed us the skin:


Here's a video of the skin:


We met Horiyoshi III, the country's top hand-poking tattoo artist. He gave our host a tattoo. Horiyoshi has a tattoo museum with some interesting displays, including preserved tattooed heads from New Zealand and Kewpie dolls:



When the shoot was over, I headed to the slopes for a little skiing:


I found some funny menu items, as well: