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Photos: Japan's centuries-old art of 'hand-carved' tattoos
Horiyoshi III, one of Japan's top tattoo artists, demonstrates his technique at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo. Scroll through the gallery to see more tebori tattooists at work.
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Photos: Japan's centuries-old art of 'hand-carved' tattoos
Artist Horimyo tattooing the shoulder of calligrapher Hayato Suzuki in Tokyo.
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Photos: Japan's centuries-old art of 'hand-carved' tattoos
Horiyoshii III is renowned for his full body designs, which can take years to complete.
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Photos: Japan's centuries-old art of 'hand-carved' tattoos
A woman receives a tebori tattoo at the Hong Kong International Tattoo Convention.
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Photos: Japan's centuries-old art of 'hand-carved' tattoos
Tebori artists use rods to manually push ink beneath the top layers of skin, leaving a permanent mark for either decoration or, historically, punishment.
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Photos: Japan's centuries-old art of 'hand-carved' tattoos
Japan's tattoo artists have existed in a legal gray area since 2001, when the country's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare decreed that any action that involves putting "pigment on a needle tip and insertin