With her dyed-brown long hair and tight designer jeans, Shoko Tendo looks like any other stylish young Japanese woman — until she removes her shirt to reveal the vivid tattoos covering her back and most of her body.
The elaborate dragons, phoenixes and a medieval courtesan with one breast bared and a knife between her teeth are a symbol of Tendo’s childhood as the daughter of a “yakuza” gangster and her youth as a drug-using gang member.
The author of “Yakuza Moon,” a best-selling memoir just out in English, the 39-year-old Tendo says that police efforts to eradicate the gangsters have merely made them harder to track.
Descended from medieval gamblers and outlaws, yakuza were long portrayed as latter-day samurai, bound by traditions of honor and duty and living extravagant lives.
The largest part of yakuza income now comes from pursuits involving stocks, property and finance.
The notion that they are harder to track is peculiar since they self-identify with extreme body art and missing fingers.
yup, tattoo removal is going to be a heck of a growth industry when the kids hit 40.
sorry girls, tattoos all over your neck and arms are gross
All I can say is, “what the Fukaza Yakuza?”
Geez talk about taking a tramp stamp to extremes…no thanks.
I think she’s pretty hot!
A beautiful woman, scarred for life. Such a shame to defile such beauty. Hey…let’s go paint Michelangelo’s David in flourescent paint!
Just wait ’til she turns 60 – that tattoo of the girl with the knife in her mouth will be nibbling on Tendo’s navel.
I actually think it’s kinda hot. 🙂
#1
It’s Japan remember? You just don’t do it american style and fill someone with 100+ bullets to “defend” yourself.
I personally would have chosen a different canvas to display another artists’ work, but it’s her own body and she seems comfortable in it. Gaging from some responses here I would bet that she wouldn’t have trouble finding a mate.
She’s gone through some changes.So has Tokyo.
I’m sure someone will correct me if i’m wrong but I understood that the tattoos were heavily ingrained in Yakuza culture. She may not have had a great deal of choice initially in getting tattoos as the daughter of a yakuza.
#2, Japanese mafia. They make the Sicilians look like whimps.
that is sad she is a pretty girl who had her life spoiled but the tattoos
Her body art is her thing. Should we condemn anyone for doing what they want with their body? Maybe I should condemn others for clipping toenails. Other cultures might consider the dead toenails to be sacred (yes this is an extreme example).
No one gets out of life without scars. She chooses to decorate her body in memory of emotional scars and important ideas.
When anyone is 60 they have a sagging 60 year old body. Tattoo or none, the body is the same.
I’m with the other posters with taste. This turns me off.
Those tats are awesome.
Judging by these comments, I’m surprised nobody has suggested she go back to the kitchen where she belongs.
It’s funny, I think a woman with a single or a small handful of tattoos on her arms/shoulder looks bad, yet I really like the full sleeve look. I don’t even pretend to understand why that is.
the tats looks a HELLUVALOT better than fake boobs, artificially inflated lips, cheekbone and chin implants, and skeletonized faces (from one too many plastic surgeries).
She has nice, quality tats, well thought out and competently executed. I think that for a body style, and art, it holds together well, and was (OBVIOUSLY) designed by one person.
Looks good, for that style…and a lot better than a lot of what is touted as body art.
#16, Jill,
It’s kind of ridiculous when people say things like “how do you think that’s going to look when your 80″ What difference does it make?
Because over the next 40 years those inks will bleed into one another until what is now art becomes just a dark blob. Those tattoos might look impressive today, but they won’t forever. The more the muscles beneath the skin move, or pressure is put on the skin, the faster the bleeding.
There’s only one thing to do then. I’m going to start orally sucking that ink out and save her life.
#10 B dog: That’s very cool, Shanghai did the same in less than half.
#17 “I’m surprised nobody has suggested she go back to the kitchen where she belongs.”
Oh yeah? She’s Yakuza, you want to tell her…? Her father is Tono-San Sopranoyoko.
But then again this is Japan its probably the other way around.
Cheers
This is a great suit of armor! You bois obviously don’t understand Japanese culture…
Figure this: she belongs to a criminal under-class of her culture. Sex crime threats for vengeance or other reasons are a definite possibility. They get a few pieces of clothing off and find the tats:
A) They are disturbed and stop committing the crime, or,
B) They say, “She’s worth a LOT to somebody, I’d better re-think this”, or,
C) They say, “Oh shit, Yazuka, I better let her go or just kill her outright.”
Also, personally I’m not tattooed – but I like to see quality tats, as long as they aren’t the “B-I-N-G-O Tramp Stamp” right above the ass and a barbed wired around the bicep. Those are sinfully cliché, thanks Pam.
Self-adornment goes back eons, from tats to piercing, to wearing a shiny rock on your finger or around your neck. She looks great!
#16 – Jill
“A lot of women have tattoos now and they’re happy to grow older with them.”
Whether it’s 20, 30 or 50 years from now, I hope you remember those words – and when you do, try to avoid giving yourself a concussion when you slap yourself in the head and say, “I didn’t actually say that, did I??”
Me, I’m willing to go along with your statement as long as we agree to define “a lot of women” as those sweet, demure flowers of femininity who’ll survive their crystal meth habits long enough to receive their Social Security checks at the Bandidos clubhouse.
You crusty old curmudgeons practically define the generation gap – and I’m no spring chicken myself…
“Their ink is part of their identity.”
Really? Their identity is due to an image someone drew on them?
A scarlet “S”, placed on me by my neighbor, makes me a whore?
Move and more, children today seem to believe what MTV, movies, and drugged up rockers tell them to think.
God save us from ourselves!
As a female with a full arm sleeve, I think it is amazing that everyone is so concerned about her personal choices. Get over it, you are obsessed. You know it is hot and taboo and that she doesn’t owe you an explanation. I find it ridiculous that the main concerns are her finding a man to think she is attractive, or how she will look at 80. Women who worry about those kinds of things will worry about them with or with out ink.
I think her tattoo art is fantastic! The thing with tattoo’s is they are only for people who actually intend to live their lives. People who don’t want get tattoo’s in case they regret in twenty years time might just as well give up the game now, ’cause whats the point….
Tendo’s tattoos are beautifully inked in a traditional style.
I’m not surprised to find a lack of appreciation for art and culture in a tech blog, especially from this crowd. But the comments show such a myopic lack of vision and perspective that I’m a little taken aback.
#3 Tramp stamp? I’ll assume it goes to your misunderstanding of the term.
#5 Would you prefer if she deformed her feet with stilletos and wore long dangly earrings, maybe some implants.
#13 Hmmm tattoos spoiled her life did they?
#18 Try to get out more, theres a whole world of experience awaiting you.
#25 My, what a convenient generalization. Does compartmentalizing women based on body art help reinforce your myopic world view?
#27 Clearly your on the left side of the bell curve.
“Clearly your on the left side of the bell curve.”
Here’s a tip: smug assertions of would-be intellectual superiority are rendered risible by errors in English which are unacceptable coming from anyone who has graduated 6th grade.
You are contracts to you’re.
I personally love these kinds of posts,
They are a reminder that though many of readers of Dvorak.org/blog tend to be fairly intelligent and slightly more progressive than many people I have encountered, at the end of they day they are still primarily a bunch of old geezers who like to rabble rouse about the good old days.
You know, back when people like me weren’t allowed in restaurants, and beating your wife was a normal part of marriage.