Customer Reviews

The Japanese Tattoo

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you have no experience with horimono, this book gives some excellent images focusing mostly on the works of three masters (only one, Horiyoshi III Sensei of Yokohama still actively tattoos). The book is worth buying for the images alone.

And I wish it were the images alone. The captions are often naive, bordering at times on offensive. The author at best over-exotifies and at worse verges on ridiculing some of her subjects, and seems to know very little about the tradition, history, and mores of Japanese society and horimono. Add to that an introduction that is almost unexplainably ludicrous (by an author with no bio!) and you have a book that's great to look at, just not to read. I'd give it 5 stars if it was just the photos.

Read Takahiro Kitamura's books as well as Donald Richie's for better information.

Imagine life-size Polaroid photographs. Imagine traditional, Japanese, full-body tattooing. Imagine a book of life-size Polaroids taken of traditional, full-body, Japanese tattoos.... this IS that book! Sandi Fellman got the proper introductions and a great toy (a Polaroid that really takes life-size plates) when she went to Japan and set out to document the hidden world of the irezumi, the tattoo underground. This collection is almost all traditional hand-executed tattooing. The details are unparallelled, and you get to see all kinds of shading you might not notice at a distance. This type of body modification still is a secret, private practice in Japan and to view images of this quality is rare.

are you interested in japanese tattoos? yes? then this book is definitely for you! the photographs are great. and the tattoos on display are all done by some of the greatest japanese tattoo masters. the introduction i found rather bad; very artsy fartsy. but it's only a bit more than a page long. so don't worry. the complementary text sandi fellman has written i haven't even read yet - i've been way too busy looking over and over again at the tattoos. again: if you're into tattoos and/or japanese tattoos you simply have to buy this book!

This book is a treasure. Beautiful photographs truly illuminate the tremendous beauty and technical mastery inherent in the tattoo art of Horikin (Mitsuaki Ohwada). As a tattooist myself, this book is a benchmark; a standard to emulate

How disappointed I was by this book. It contains absolutely no news. The tattoo masters in this book do not meet in any way the high standard of irezumi that I am used to. For all you buyers who really want to learn about Japanese tattoos, read the book by Richie and Buruma, very informative. For photo's who are less blurry than in this book, just check the net or invest many dollars more for a proper book. ... . This book is a nice introduction for some common knowledge about Japanese tattoo art, but does not provide any new insights or ideas.

This is an amazing book for the avid tattoo enthusiast. Anyone who knows about the art of traditional Japanese style tattooing will find this book a treasure. The book focuses on photography with a small intoduction and background on the art. I promise you will not find a greater photographic reference of the traditional Japanese tattoo.

I concur with the other people who were disappointed with this book. Images were very low quality, tattoos themselves were mediocre, and text only skims the surface of Japanese tattoo design and history. Not worthy of the price paid, or the coffee table.

On the good side, Amazon service was just as great as ever in delivering this book.

On the bad side (and there are several) this book had a cheap feel about it just from opening the packaging. Reading the preface / introduction I was stunned by the insulting gibberish by D.M. Thomas as to the Japanese tattoo culture. Looking at the back cover of the book you also see the photographer holding the heads of her subjects which also feels demeaning to the Japanese men portrayed in the picture: Japanese are not very touchy and touching ones head is generally not a good thing in most Asian cultures: the impression is of a woman and her two dogs. Not nice.

Later in the book you find the photographs blurry and the picture text very poor: you could have filled these huge pages with a lot of informative and captivating text about Japanese tattoo and culture. Instead you get to read what is pretty much: "this man has a fish tattoo".

I was disappointed with how the illustrations were presented. The explanations were done clearly, but not a book for those who are looking for ideas for new ink.

This Book is mostly pictures. However it is very art based and for people who have a real appreciation for tattoos and there presence on the human body