Now that's just kind of -not as big of a deal.- That chair is definitelya contemporary...

Now that's just kind of -not as big of a deal.
-[record scratches] [narrator] That chair is definitely
a contemporary take on tattooing, but look at the other arm. Those waves and gusts of wind,
for a long time, that's something you'd usually only see
on Japanese criminals. Tattoo was actually used
as a criminal punishment in Japan for centuries,
usually on the arms or face. But penal tattooing died out
by the end of the 17th century, likely because of the rise
of decorative tattooing, which criminals could use
to cover their marks. But tattooing really took off
in Japan in 1827 when a woodblock printer,
Utagawa Kuniyoshi, made a series of prints based
on the wildly popular book Suikoden, which featured legendary outlaws,
some of them covered in tattoos. His prints were a sensation. Almost immediately,
people around Edo, modern-day Tokyo, were getting tattoos of those same heroes. [speaking in Japanese]
Tattoos are a symbol of power