Tattoos in Japan

Getting a tattoo tomorrow, going to Japan in a year, hopefully to teach English. Gonna get the tattoo regardless, but just wondering how bad it'll fuck me over xD I hear waterparks and bath houses will ban people with tattoos. Anything else?

Went there a couple of months ago with a friend. Both of us have tatoos and he has full sleeves. The only thing I noticed was at a good restaurant they may ask you to cover it, so as long as you can cover it you should be fine. As for waterparks and bathhouses, most will ban you from what I've seen.

It will handicap you a good amount to alot in Japan. They view it as opposite to society's expectations. Generally those who have tattoo's is one infamous group the Yakuza and others here and there who have em go against the system, society rebels you can say. I'd hold off until after you visited Japan.

There are no foreigner in the Yakuza,so that does not count. I can see Japanese with tattoo's as being bad, but as a foreigner all we got was praise at how pretty they were. The standards are different and most Japanese at less in Tokyo understand that. As long as you can cover it for social and work obligations and stay away from places that you can not cover it (IE bathhouse) you will be fine.

They're generally not look upon positively in Asia, especially in the more conservative areas. However, you're not gonna have people giving you crap to your face because Asian people just don't do that really. So at most, people will just assume stuff about you. I agree about the covering up if you can though.

I didn't see anyone bring this guy up yet and you may have already seen him but there is a caucasian dude on youtube that has lived in Japan for several years now and was an English teacher there for quite a while before becoming a freelance artist. He has a dump load of tattoos and has many videos on his channel talking about how they're seen in Japan among many other helpful topics about visiting/living in Japan. He doesn't bullshit by saying that Japan is this perfectly awesome place where everything is socially acceptable. He points out that there are several things that many people would probably hate about Japan. On the subject of teaching English, he claimed that it's very difficult to get jobs at a junior-high or senior-high schools if you're foreigner at all, let alone one with tattoos. But he also said that it's much easier to get jobs working with younger kids in kindergarten type schools as long as you cover your tats. http://www.youtube.com/user/unrested <this is his channel. His name is Scott Ackerman and I recommend checking out his J-FAQ videos. They're helpful and entertaining.

tattoos are looked on as pleasant things to most japanese (it doesn't matter whether u are a yakuza or a foreigner, tattoos are still bad to most japanese). Its not necessarily anything personal, its just tattoos just had a sort of bad image since they were mainly seen on yakuza members. tattoos will keep u from doing things from what I have heard from another guy who is living in japan, some examples are like gyms/water parks/ restaurants (now i'm not saying every single one, but there are some that don't allow people with tattoos to be there). This video (and all of his videos) are good to watch if u want to learn more, best to take the advices of the person who is actually living there right? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw8eHvM1j9k --Tattoo