Inkers MAGAZINE - Yokosuka Horihide

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Yokosuka Horihide

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Yokosuka Horihide

Words : Pascal Bagot

Japanese tattooer Yokosuka Horihide sadly passed away in 2017, at the age of 88 years old. Relatively confidential to the main public, he was recognised as one of the living legends of irezumi. Raised in the city of Yokosuka, near Tokyo, he broke into the profession during the tormented era of the post 2nd World War, when his city became a naval base for the American army and Yankee soldiers a suitable clientele. Ironically starting with western designs, he finally found his way to the Japanese traditional tattoo culture, to which he dedicated his entire life.

How many tattooers can pretend having worked professionally for more than 60 years and having shown as much consistency in their work ? In 2016 –when I visited him for the last time- Horihide still showed a remarkable love for the craft. Everyday, he was drawing in the little studio he had besides his traditional house in Yokosuka. On big sheets of paper he was repeating tirelessly motifs he had tattooed all his life on the bodies of his customers. At 87 years old, he was still refining their shapes, looking for the perfect gestures and expressions, new compositions. The line was solid and elegant, the result was astonishing of mastery. The lucky people who would pay a visit to him would come back very impressed. Not only because of his work, but also because of his personality. Affable and polite, Horihide had this natural authority which often comes along with a straight frankness. Moreover, despite his age, I could still appreciate during our long discussions his vivid mind and his clear memory, while recalling precisely some of the numerous episodes of his epic life. A real force of nature. How possible was it not to think of the famous artist Hokusaï ? Like the Japanese genius, he was seeking perfection, always trying to push further the limits of his art. Born in 1929, Horihide – who’s real name was Hideo Kakimoto - left us in spring 2017. He was 88 years old. The history of japanese tattooing lost one of his masters but he will stay in our minds forever. Keep his memory alive. RIP sensei.

In which circumstances did you start tattooing ? I started 65 years ago, around 1950-51. At that time, right after the 2nd World War, there was no work in Japan but there were a lot of American soldiers. During the Vietnam and Korea wars, military boats would arrive at the naval base of Yokosuka. Soldiers who would get down of them were often tattooed, but they wanted more. Korean war just started, and these times were mad; Americans were suffering a lot. When soldiers would stay too much time on the war fields, they were getting crazy. One of the things that helped them to forget the situations they experienced was to get tattooed and not to think about anything. As there was no job during this time but many soldiers, I decided to do this profession. I was about 20-21.

How did you get your tools? I was young, I was just starting by hand but I was studying to get my work better. One day, an American tattooer arrived on a boat. He had a tattoo machine he brought with him, certainly because he was tattooing people around him. But he had some money problems and he decided to sell it to give the money back he had to. When I heard about it I immediately borrowed the money I needed and decided to buy it. I can’t remember exactly how much I paid but it was something like 30 000- 50 000 yens. Nowadays it would be something like 500 000 yens, at the minimum (around 4 000 euros, ndlr). The next day I immediately started to use it. I was young I was progressing fast. At that time in the profession, there was only one tattooer in Japan who owned such a machine: Horigoro II, from Tokyo.

How would you work with american soldiers ? When a boat would get into the harbour it signified for tattooers a very important amount of work. Boats were not coming on a regular basis so you had to take the maximum out of it when they were here. Usually they would stay one week on shore. During this time I was working like hell, it was so tiring. I would start in the morning at 10 and would not stop until 10 in the evening. For 12 hours I would sit on my chair and work, whithout even eating. I could tattoo something like 100 people the same day. These were small tattoos, I would spend an average time of like 10 minutes for each customer. I have to say I was much more concentrated on doing the outline. To help me I had two assistants who would work with me : one to negociate in english and an other one to get the money.

How did your career developed ? I tattooed American soldiers until the end of the war with western motifs essentially. Besides, I was studying japanese tattooing. In the end I started to have japanese customers and I had to make some progress to satisfy them. I wanted to learn faster but the other tattooers wouldn’t show their drawings and didn’t want to share their techniques either. I would tattoo japanese people in the end of afternoons and during evenings. Then I found a good balance: spending half of the month with my western customers and the other half on the road to satisfy my requests outside of Tokyo. But I ended up having my planning full: I had about 2 to 3 months of advanced booking. I have been busy like this during almost 20 years, from the age of 30 until I was about 50.

At that time and more than now, Japanese society didn’t accept tattooer as a profession, how did you live with that ? I was living a little bit on the side of society and I was surrounded by tattooed people too. It was something familiar to me, I didn’t have to hide the fact I was a tattooer. But I got worried when my son had to go to college. We wanted to put him in a private institution but I had to tell about my profession, which I obviously could not. In that purpose I created two different companies. The first was dealing with metal material and the other one was transporting eggs. They were not profitable at all, I lost a lot of money because of them. Then I got very worried by my son’s mariage. I asked myself if he could find a woman. I was scared that, because of my profession, a woman wouldn’t accept to be with him. But finally he met someone, a very nice woman, with who he has two kids now.

What were the relationships between tattooers at that time ? People were not helping each other at all. There was no communication between tattooers, no information. We were all rivals. At that time, the reputation of a tattooer would come out by word of mouth. Everybody had to find his own tools for working, colours and inks. I had to find all the palette by myself. I would try tints used in japanese painting. To know if they were suitable for tattooing I would do some tests on my body. Some of them were bad for health, provoking fever, but I would test them anyway. At that time in Tokyo there were still really good tattooers. People like Horiuno II, Horigoro II, Horikin, Yamekuma… Horiuno II was tattooing by hand and he was considered as a maestro. His tattoos would have those fat lines that you could see from a distance and thanks to them you could read the designs easily. Horiuno II was so popular that, in a yakuza movie shot in the 50’s, the character of the tattooer was inspired by him.

Japanese authorities are actually hardly pressuring tattooers and a Japanese tattooer even brought the case to the court. (Osaka prefecture based tattooer Taiki Masuda, 29, went to court for a recognation of the profession in Japan, after his arrest in 2015 for breaking the medical practicioner law). What do you think about it ? There is no law that forbids this job. Therefore, if there is no law they can not forbid it. It’s been a long time that I work and I’ve never been in trouble for that matter by the police. Then, I don’t believe that the studios have been shut because they were tattooing. If it is the case it is something very serious, it would signifies that we’re coming back to nationalism in the pre- 2nd World War period. At that time the military regime wanted an army, they wanted it to be pure and all brought together with immaculate bodies. Of course, tattooed people were banished. In the case of these arrests, I can imagine that the police has been motivated by other elements. The advice that I usually give to tattooers when they come visiting me is: if you don’t use forbidden products and you pay your taxes, you won’t have any problems. What kind of restrictions did you go through during your career ? When tattooing wasn’t illegal anymore after the 2nd World War (Tattooing has been officially banned in Japan from 1872 and 1945), everything changed. But among policemen, some of them didn’t know it and once I almost got arrested. The most obvious forbidden thing to do was to tattoo people under the legal age. I’ve been arrested 3 times in 10 years for that reason. Of course, I had been cheated and each time I had to pay 50 000 yens fines, which was not really big at that time.

In which circumstances did these situations happen ? My customers were 20 years old, the legal age in Japan, and they had been arrested for other reasons before. But when policemen arrested them again and asked them some questions, they got curious about tattoos too. They said they had done it years before, when they were not supposed to get them. For that reason, the police came to me. Of course, when these customers came in I had no idea I shouldn’t have done it; it’s quite common when young people lie about their age or show fake IDs. Then I got pissed off and I refused to tattoo young people. In fact, I ended to have only adult customers.

What did the police procedure plan in that kind of circumstances ? They would seize the tools. Because they are elements to prove tattooing had been done. But I have to admit that I have been quite lucky regarding that, and unlike other tattooers, policemen never did. Usually, the tools are given back though.

Were there other circumstances for you to face the police ? It happened that people from the yakuza groups told bullshits to the police, to be quickly release. Some pretended that I was keeping weapons in my studio, swords and guns, claiming that I was a dangerous man. On similar statements, one day eight policemen came to me with a warrant for arrest. They looked everywhere in my studio, they even brought a metal detector. They were very disappointed to find only items for which I had all the legal papers. It was true that I had swords and even armours, but I had all the papers to certify I was allowed to.

How did you work with the yakuza ? About 20-25 years ago I would work with members of the Inagawa-kai. At 60 years old with the Yamaguchi-gumi. Because they asked me to do it I would come to the cities of Hakata, in Kyushu, Kobe, etc, by car with my assistant. Once arrived, I would be designated the ones who would get tattoos. I would work without doing any pause for 10 hours a day, over periods of 16 days at the maximum. It was long and difficult. Usually, the Oyabun –the chief of the clan- always pay for the members, to the exception of those who could pay with their own money ; usually they were people with a quite high position in the hierarchy.

If you had to consider you’re whole career, what percentage would the yakuza represent among your clientele? Less than 30%. At first, craftmen would get tattooed and then yakuza copied them. During the Edo period, carpenters, gardeners, hikeshi (firemen) would get tattooed on visible parts of the body. Tattooing was kind of a luxury hobby for them. It’s still the case today. Therefore, the people you can see here on the pictures (framed on the walls of the studio) are gardeners, builders, sushi masters, etc. And all these people have one thing in common : they often go through the whole process of tattooing and usually finish their tattoos. Unlike the yakuza. Because they’re going to jail, and because they also sometimes leave the clan they belong to, these are reasons serious enough for them to stop getting tattooed. To the exception of the chiefs and other high-ranked members, a lot of yakuza sport unfinished tattoos.

How do you look at the evolution of the profession today? Young people just think it’s enough to copy drawings on stencils and then to stick them on the body before tattooing. They all look the same in the end. But, if you can draw, you can express differently the same motif. Each tattooer has his own way of drawing. Good tattooers know how to use a pencil. When you’re not sure, you draw on paper, two, three times. During my career, I had never drawn anything from my own and only creation. Each time I did a drawing by myself without having a reference from the past, it was not a good job and I destroyed it. When I do a drawing which refers to Utagawa Kuniyoshi for example or other masters like Katsushika Hokusaï, then I can do something that I find satisfying. After having modified it a little bit, of course.

When did you stop tattooing ? I never did. Even today I’m still doing it. I have a customer coming every sunday to get tattooed, for two hours. He came to me 4 years ago before getting in prison two years later. When he came out, we started again from where we stopped. I’ve done only 20% of this body-suit so far. I don’t know if we’ll have the possibility to finish it before I die though.

Apart from tattooing, you’re still exercising? I think that I’m still doing progress with my drawing. When I was younger I learnt that a drawer had the ability to keep on his art until the age of 90 years old. I remember I was very surprised and I asked myself if it was really something possible. Now I understand that, even though you’re getting old, if you keep on doing what you do you’ll make progresses. It is true that I don’t have the same strength I used to have when I was young but I keep on making progresses in terms of technique and sensibility. I’m a much better drawer now.

MORE: You can find an edition of his designs in the book published here: https://www.tattoolifestore.com/tattoo-books-collection/horihide-by-horihide.html