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I once read about a tattoo artist from Osaka, Japan.
It was the most impressive work I'd ever seen. It was made by Horitsune II.
I wrote, we got acquainted, and now, five years later...
...I'm back in Japan for the fifth time to visit Horitsune.
This time not only to finish my backpiece...
...but also to work, travel and visit colleagues.
I'm Rob Admiraal, a tattooist from Amsterdam...
...with a special interest in the Japanese style.
Tebori or machine?
In this suitcase I keep my tattoo equipment.
I'm going to do some tattooing at Miyazo's place.
Miyazo is Horitsune's pupil.
He has a studio on the edge of Osaka.
At Miyazo's I will tattoo my first Japanese client.
I'm going to show this.
When Westerners see my tattoo they ask if it was done in the traditional way.
With sticks. As if that was essential.
In the days of my own apprenticeship...
...the originators were investigating...
...the change-over from working by hand to using a machine.
After that time all tattoos were placed mechanically.
That's why we all studied the new method.
That was the time tattoos were made mechanically and not by hand.
I too switched from working by hand...
...to using a machine.
And since then I've always worked with the machine.
The hand technique is very difficult and needs a long time of practice.
It makes no odds. With sticks it can look just as nice as with a machine.
It's no more traditional than the other way.
Horitsune works in a very traditional way...
...and if he'd been using sticks...
...I don't feel it would have been more traditional.
It depends on the person who does it, I think.
The machine isn't necessarily better.
If you do it well the result is exactly the same.
But I can work more neatly than when working by hand.
And of course it works faster. The shading and the lines.
He contacted me via the internet when he'd read the article in
was originally a magazine for bikers...
...and it turned into a kind of cult...
...hard-core, underground kind of paper...
...with tattoos in it. There's a separate
They show all sorts of extreme cases, in Japan as well as outside Japan.
Burst Magazine.
I met the editor in Amsterdam. He came to see me in my studio I remember.
I met him at conventions, too, but that was after he'd been to my studio.
Without goatee.
When he had read the article about me he sent me an e-mail...
...and I made an appointment with him...
...because it seemed like a small tattoo.
He contacted me for a tattoo on his foot.
But it was a misunderstanding. He meant his leg.
The tattoo turned out a bit larger...
...than I'd thought originally.
But it's a good one. I didn't finish it but he may come back next year.
Or I will go to Japan to carry on with the job.
Finished? - Yes, finished.
I've finished for today.
I like it.
Do you like it? Are you pleased? Happy? - Happy, very happy.
I know someone who had a tattoo done by Sabado.
That was in the Berlage building in Amsterdam, oh, maybe ten years ago.
Long ago. - Yes, ages ago. It was Tall John.
He had a tattoo done by Sabado and said: He's going to be a big one later on.
And he was right. - Yes, he already saw it then.