Bonten Taro 凡天太郎
凡天太郎 Bonten Taro (1929-2008)
Japanese tattoo artist, painter, dramatist, designer, and cartoonist. He worked hard to dispel the negative image of "tattoos = gangster" and to make the world recognize tattoos as the "most primitive fashion" of decorating the skin with pictures. Bonten Taro is known as a revolutionary in the world of Japanese-style carving. He is the person who laid the foundation of modern tattooing by bringing colors other than black and red to the world of Japanese carving, introducing tattoo machines arranged for Japanese carving to a world where hand carving was considered the basic method, and developing sheets that transfer illustrations onto the skin.