Forum - View topicAnswerman - How Come More Anime Characters Don't Have Tattoos?
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PurpleWarrior13
 Posts: 2027 |
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I live in Richmond VA, the tattoo capital of the US. Something like 1 in 8 people here have some kind of tattoo. My brother has dozens of them, including a sleeve. I have no plans on getting one, but I've toyed with the idea of getting a small gemini symbol somewhere (probably on the side of my naval). The idea of something on my skin forever doesn't appeal to me. I think they can look cool though, and I'm very against the idea of them being any kind of factor in businesses not hiring someone. I run into tattooed people so often, I hardly even notice anymore. I couldn't give a rat's ass if my bank teller had a sleeve.
Not sure I could see them in anime though. They would be too distracting. Few western animated characters have them. Pocahontas is the only one I can think of right now. Revy from Black Lagoon is the only anime character I can think of with an unimportant tattoo. |
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#824867
Posts: 11 |
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I've seen an equal amount of (in my eyes) appalling and appealing tattoos. Generally speaking, I think there are some very cool ones out there, but I'm too indecisive to get one myself. I'd get a Triforce on my hand, then a month later wish I'd instead got an Archangel symbol from Mass Effect on my shoulder. While practising parkour I'll get an urge to get the circuit board sleeve tattoo from Mirror's Edge, but by the end of the day conclude it'd look stupid.
I think it'd be nice to get a bigger visual variation in characters. My tolerance for brown-haired, white-skinned, average-joes in highschool uniforms is wearing thin, and this is coming from someone who looks like a stereotypical anime protagonist. I think there was someone in Tokyo Ghoul who had a lot of tattoos, that looked cool. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Tattoos also have a stigma in the United States: Many retail businesses will not hire people who have tattoos they cannot cover up. White Castle is very strict on this issue, for instance. Tattoos are still associated in the United States with gangs and violence, though there seems to be an increasing amount of tattoos of some pop culture character or icon. Those seem to be more acceptable (but still unacceptable to enough people that these businesses have a no-tattoos policy on employment).
There's the Tattooed Man, who is, if I recall correctly, a D-list Spider-Man villain. I do remember that foe in Speed Grapher though. He could also transfer his tattoos onto other people, which allowed him to manifest that tattoo whenever he wanted and could track their locations. There was a scene where he transferred a tattoo of...a dragon, I believe, onto much of the front side of the torso of a woman he was about to have sex with, making it look like she was tattooed from right below her neck to around her navel. I'm sure that would've been an outright scandalous tattoo on a woman in Japan.
So...Equestria Girls? (Well, that's more a magical girl franchise.)
A lot of One Piece characters have tattoos. Luffy temporarily had the "3D2Y" one, no doubt based on his brother Ace's "A(crossed-out S)CE" tattoo. Trafalgar Law has both his Jolly Roger on his chest (and shoulders and back and the backs of his hands) and the word "DEATH" spelled out across his fingers. The branding used to indicate slaves of the Nobles was reappropriated into the Sun Pirates emblem. Some of the Whitebeard Pirates allies has Whitebeard's Jolly Roger. No doubt Eiichiro Oda has a lot of tattooed characters, nearly all of them pirates, to indicate they operate beyond the law and live lives of freedom. Sakazuki is a case of a character on the government's side with a tattoo, however, and his rose one is a whopper.
It takes a lot of commitment to pick something specific to commission to a tattoo artist. If someone wants a tattoo of, say, the House Lannister sigil, chances are they like Game of Thrones enough that it'll be a reference point for the rest of their lives. I mean, a restaurant themed on Saved by the Bell just popped up in the midwest. Who's heard any discussion about that show in the past decade?
In general, you'll find tattooed characters far more often in western animation aimed at adults, as works aimed at children tend to be about children or teenagers or are otherwise afraid of creating the wrong role model for viewers. |
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Just Passing Through
Posts: 277 |
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I know doctors recreate nipples and areolae after mastectomies and breast reconstuctions via tattoos. That's one medical use. I also think they use tattoos in some instances for cancer treatment, targetting proton beams more accurately for brain tumour reduction. I also agree that animating tattoos, especially detailed tattoos would certainly have been difficult in days past. Now of course, the temptation would be to animate in 3D CGI, texture map the tattoos on, and then 'convert' to faux 2D as some anime are made now. My fave anime tattoo would be Revy in Black Lagoon. She had some serious ink. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4478 |
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There is probably something to that. Cartoon characters, regardless of where they are created, tend to wear the same outfit all the time, or at least most of the time, since it is quicker, easier, and cheaper than coming up with a full wardrobe for each character. I can't imagine they are eager to add to the workload any more than necessary. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5876 Location: Virginia, United States |
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When I grew up tattoos were things pirates, bikers, and sailors had.
Personally, some of them look nice close up, but when you are looking at the person, they are just a blot of ink marring the natural beauty of a person. |
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horseradish
 SubscriberPosts: 574 Location: Bay Area |
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Last edited by horseradish on Tue Apr 27, 2021 6:17 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Paiprince
 Posts: 593 |
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You can just wear clothes with kickass designs, symbols and logos. At least you can take those off once you outgrow them. Not with tattoos. They stick with you for life so you better be a real punk for life if you're going to taint your skin with ink. Plus you run the risk to get allergies and tetanus and HIV from tattooists who don't know what they're doing. Personally, not the smartest life choice you can make.
That said, when anime and manga do put tattoos in their characters, it's less tackier than in real life. People need to style theirs like Revy's with neutral and sharp lines instead of a goddamn painting on their torsos. |
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horseradish
Subscriber Posts: 574 Location: Bay Area |
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Last edited by horseradish on Tue Apr 27, 2021 6:17 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Vibrant Wolf
 Posts: 109 Location: Canada |
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Then the only real problem you'll have with henna is keeping in on your skin long enough to dry and flake off on it's own. |
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Parse Error
 Posts: 592 |
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The population is not spread out evenly, though. For example, half the population lives in 146 counties or county-equivalents out of 3,143. So, if something were true of just half the people in those most populated 146 counties and cities, that's already 25% of the entire population, and you still have over twenty times as many such districts remaining. Other than noticing firsthand that they seem less common in intensely conservative areas (as one would expect), I don't have any idea to exactly what degree the popularity of tattoos varies regionally, but the figure you're citing would still be easily possible even with significant variation. As for tattoos in anime, while I don't "hate" them on other people in real life, I can certainly live without seeing them on fictional characters because it's not something I can relate to. I haven't changed nearly as much as I expected to, or indeed even as much as I really should have, but it's still for the best not to have the evidence of interests from decades past painted all over my body to this day. |
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Banken
Posts: 1280 |
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FWIW, most public baths in Japan ban people with tattoos.
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Polycell
 Posts: 4623 |
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Some time back a bathhouse rejecting a woman and refusing to make an exception for cultural tattoos made the news(I want to say she was Maori, but she might've been from some South American tribe). There were, of course, people offended they'd reject someone because of religious tattoos, but ultimately nothing came of it.
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Ryo Hazuki
Posts: 365 Location: Finland |
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I guess the only stupid questions are those you don't ask, but I still don't understand the question. How many tattooed characters you see in American movies or tv shows or cartoons? And I mean characters, who aren't soldiers, musicians, bikers or gangsters.
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