Witness – 🇯🇵 Japan’s Tattoo Outlaws | Witness

In April 2015, five police detectives raided Taiki Masuda’s tattoo studio in the Japanese prefecture of Osaka. He was accused of breaking the law by operating without a doctor’s licence.

According to the country’s Medical Practitioner’s Act: “No person except a medical practitioner shall engage in medical practice.”

But the Act, which dates from 1948, doesn’t specify what constitutes “medical practice”.

However, in 2001, in an attempt to regulate the country’s growing permanent makeup industry, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare issued a statement in which it described “putting pigment on a needle tip and inserting it into the skin” as a medical practice that requires a medical practitioner’s licence.

The raid on Taiki’s studio was part of a broader crackdown on tattoo artists in which several were charged. The others paid their fines but Taiki refused.

In a country where tattoos are widely disliked for their perceived association with Yakuza gangsters, Taiki considers them an art form with a rich history.

He faced a choice: settle the fine and never tattoo in Japan again, or challenge a law that criminalises his work.

He decided to go to court in a landmark case that could determine the future of tattooing in the country.

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