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I am Horisuzu.
I'm a traditional Japanese tattooer
based here in Portland, Oregon.
What I think is most unique about the Japanese tattoo
is the imagery, would be the first thing.
The motifs are things pulled from Japanese culture.
So dragons, tigers, heroes, gods, demons.
The second aspect of that I think would be
the amount of body that it covers.
Your body is meant to just convey really one story.
So you have one image, central image, on your back,
and then your arms are kind of secondary images
to that main story.
Japanese full-body tattoo was just so beautiful
that when I saw it, I was just taken aback,
and that's really what first attracted me to it.
I traveled to Japan, got tattooed by my master,
and I asked him to be his apprentice.
And after asking enough times, he obviously saw something in me
and thought that I might have what it takes
and then took me on as an apprentice.
My master is Ryugen Sensei of Tokyo, Japan.
He's been tattooing for a couple decades now.
He was so giving with his time and with his knowledge
that he really sat down with me and helped me to understand
the cultural context of the story
and the hidden meaning behind the story,
the hero or, you know, the mythology --
understanding what the story was.
The green, and then it goes a little bit on the back.
My name is Joshua Even.
I'm a dentist in Portland, Oregon.
We've recently completed
the two sleeves that we have been working on,
and we're going to be starting probably later next year
on my back piece.
HORISUZU: So right now I'm just recoloring this section.
It's kind of hard to see that there's just
the faintest little loss of black in there.
The technique that I use is tebori.
It's the technique of traditional Japanese tattooing.
We are manipulating by hand the needles
and putting the ink into the skin that way,
and so through the thrusting motions
and the fluttering motions,
we can create the gradations and the solid fields of color
that the tattoo machines do,
but obviously we're doing it by hand.
All of my clients come usually with a base idea.
They have an idea of they want this image or this hero.
Those stories I have to translate
into the Japanese tattoo iconography.
The first thing I wanted to do was to have the medical symbol
of the snake around the rod because I'm a dentist.
So I wanted something that reminded me of my profession
and I wanted the symbology of the skull,
both for sort of the anatomical representation of it --
I'm very familiar with the head and the teeth.
That was kind of my thing.
So Horisuzu designed this piece
to have that as the central image.
I added the peonies, which always go with the snake,
and then I also added a willow leaf staff
that has secondary meaning
in that it was used in old Japan to heal people.
It was kind of like a talisman for healing.
So that really tied into what he was thinking with originally.
The imagery that I come up with for my tattoo designs
is really just part of a longer lineage.
My master, his master, they've all sourced
the same imagery from Japanese culture.
So my -- most of my designs are sourced from my master.
He's given me designs and told me the stories,
and that's how I've gotten that information.
That's how it's been transmitted through the generations.
Usually right around 10 to 12 years
to complete a full body suit.
With all of my clients, I have this bond,
that we've spent so much time together,
and I'm such a part of their life,
and they become such a part of my life,
that that's why the Japanese tattoo I feel like
has such an immense draw to a lot of people
is because it is a long-term commitment.
It does take a long time to complete.
But that journey is just as important as the end result.