u/Horimonologs

Entry 13: Where Direction Matters
Artist: Horikazu
Theme: Rochishin and Dragons
Source: Japanese Tattoo Arts: Horikazu

I kept wanting to say this Horikazu suit works because of diagonals. On the back, red lightning cuts across the shoulder bands, the weapon angles through them and then the snake turns another way. The front gives us two dragons dropping down the torso while the background bars move across them. Here I was thinking I had a neat little rule that crossing directions separate things.

Then I looked again and the dragon scales ruined that. See, the scales are packed with small intersecting lines, but they still read as one body. So I tried tracing the suit in layers. First I traced only the background directions. Then I traced only the dragons’ main body directions. Those two maps stay distinct. But when I traced the scales alone, they turned into a cross-hatched fence. Then I deleted it and traced the dragon’s outer contour and main axis again, and one large form snaped back into place.

Maybe direction alone does not group or separate forms by itself. A crossing seems to matter more when it happens between two already-readable systems. Inside one larger system, the same kind of crossing can get absorbed into pattern or texture. That may be part of how this suit stays crowded without turning into one busy block.

Larger systems remain easy to tell apart even while the smaller marks inside them stay busy. But, hey. We are allowed to make a hypothesis, get dunked on by a dragon scale, and come back with a better question, right?

Here’s the takeaway. If you trace the background first, then the main subjects, where do the directions agree and where do they push against each other? Now trace the scales, then the dragon’s outside shape. At what level does the crossing start to matter, and when does it simply become part of the texture?

Entry 00: What We Still Can’t See
Artist: Horitsune II
Theme: Peonies
Source: World of Horitsune (1985)

Sometimes a bodysuit is cool because it is. This Horitsune II gets me before I have much of an explanation for it. Bright peonies, huge areas of black rocks, and various values of gray currents curling across the body. The whole thing feels almost psychedelic in its movement. My first response is basically ‘Whoa’.

Reading the Bodysuit has made me interested in what happens after that first response. During the first entries, I started catching myself seeing relationships before identities. Sometimes I’d squint, cover part of the image, or ignore the subject for a moment. That’s when the relationships started showing up. Clouds overlapping a dragon became pale rounded shapes crossing long S- and C-curves. Scales became a dense pattern beside quiet skin. Figures became silhouettes. Flowers became bright interruptions inside a much larger dark mass. The subjects were still there. I was just seeing another layer too.

That’s part of what pushed me deeper into visual literacy. Going into the next phase, I’m bringing composition books along with the tattoo ones. I want to see whether ideas about shape, space, contrast, repetition, and relationships help me ask better questions.

This Horitsune II seems like a perfect test and also a reminder. There isn’t a huge warrior, deity, or dragon anchoring the center of the back. Even the peonies don’t behave like one central subject. They appear, disappear, and return while black, gray, and open skin move around them.

Look at the standing view. Curves travel across the shoulders, down the back, around the hips, and into the thighs. Reds and greens keep resurfacing. Dense and quiet areas alternate. The background almost seems to take on the job I’d normally expect a large figure to do. Whoa.

Maybe that’s why I find this suit so interesting. There’s no obvious giant anchor, yet the whole thing feels connected. I don’t know exactly why, and that feels like a pretty good place to start the next phase.

Maybe Dondis, Wong, Bang, Dow, and You can help.

Let’s look again.

Artist: Horicho
Source: Tattoo of Horicho (1988)
Photographers: Koji Yagi**,** Tritada Suzuki**,** Eiichi Kosaka**, and** Mayumi Yamagishi**.**

Sorry for deleting the last one.

Moving forward, I’m going to keep photographs as close to their source as possible. In most cases, that means cropping only when needed to fit the frame.

That doesn’t mean the original photographs are neutral. Old books may carry their own lighting, film, printing, aging, or scanning effects, just as contemporary tattoo photography may involve careful editing. Those choices are part of how the work was documented.

I’ve realized that adding my own color, contrast, or tonal corrections creates another layer between the original record and the thing I’m trying to study. Since those qualities are often part of the composition I’m looking at, I’d rather preserve the source and acknowledge its limits than try to “fix” it.

So the goal isn’t unedited purity. It’s fidelity to the photograph I actually have.

Thank you to Horicho for sharing his perspective on the photographs and helping me think more carefully about how I use source images in this project. Also thank you to Proph Bundy for giving guidance on placement of credits. And again, apologies to anybody who reads these for deleting the last one.

Entry 12: The Tonal World
Artist: Horicho
Front: Munewari Botan to Kannon
Back: Kishi Monju

Watching where the reds and blue-greens appeared and reappeared, I thought this was going to be about color cohesion. Then the preparatory drawing got me wondering. I took a picture and tried something out. I cranked the saturation all the way down. Something became clear. Monju, the lion, flowers, and dark bars are already readable before color. A dark-light structure is doing the first job of realizing this world. Color strengthens it. It’s also doing so much more.

You can try it, too. After, crank the saturation back up. See how Monju gathers nearly the whole palette in one place, but still feels connected to the flowers, dragons, and figures around the suit? Pick a color on Monju or his mount. Follow that color around the body. Red returns in peonies, robes, halos, beads, scales, and small accents. Blue-green moves through leaves, clothing, dragons, and other details. Neither stays with one subject or body region. Even the beads carry both colors through the open chest without filling it. One color isn’t everywhere. It’s everywhere enough.

Then I noticed something else. The warm and cool colors aren’t just repeating. They stay surprisingly close as they travel toward the arms and legs. The reds remain warm and muted. The blue-greens stay subdued instead of turning bright or icy.

Finally the bars. Here, Horicho’s “black” moves through night, charcoal, smoke, and pale tones as they approach bare skin. Those lighter tones appear near faces, arms, clouds, and open areas, so the background doesn’t feel like a flat black container. It settles into the same atmosphere as the subjects. The bars aren’t outside the palette. They help complete it.

I’m starting to think we’re looking at a tonal world. The colors travel around the body, their temperatures stay related, and gradation connects the deepest black to the lightest skin. Everything feels like it belongs under the same sky. If you replaced any peony with bright purple, gave either dragon an electric-blue body, or filled every bar with solid black, would it still feel like one world?

Entry 11b: What Changes and Stays the Same

I thought this second rhythm post would just give me another example. Then I noticed the red juzu beads around the neckline. They’re nearly the same size, evenly spaced, and easy to predict. The sleeve and ankle borders echo that count.

The peonies don’t behave that way, though. Large blooms gather around the shoulders and chest. Smaller ones appear through the torso. Then the front of one thigh becomes much quieter where a coverup creates a broad dark passage. Bonten Taro turns that constraint into a long pause before the flowers return lower on the leg. On the back, the yūjo (遊女), identified for me by Bonten Horiken IV, takes over the middle. The peonies gather around her upper body, thin out as the figure and robe fill the center, then return at different heights on the thighs and calves.

Let’s look again together. Follow only the peonies. Each time one returns, ask what changed. Is it alone or grouped? Larger or smaller? Turned in a new direction? Close to the last flower or separated by a long stretch of waves and dark background? The flowers remain recognizable, but their size, direction, spacing, grouping, and surrounding density keep changing. Sometimes one flower lands as the accent. Other times a whole cluster does.

Cadence may be the better word for what we’re seeing here. I mean the visible order of returns, gaps, accents, pauses, and interruptions. The bead border repeats predictably. The peonies keep the same identity while refusing the same timing. Those changes may produce the rhythm I feel, while density also changes the pace, or how quickly each area can be taken in.

Horiyoshi II’s Sumizome and Kumadori suit showed us where looking speeds up and slows down. This Bonten Taro suit may be showing us how the beat is arranged underneath that experience. I’m even starting to see the same staggered return in the rocks on the backs of the legs. When you compare the steady bead border with the scattered peonies and rocks, which repetition feels more alive?

Artist: Bonten Taro
Theme: Botan Chirashi and Yūjo (遊女)
Source: Japan Tattoo Graph

Entry 11a: Where Our Eyes Speed Up and Slow Down
Artist: Horiyoshi II
Theme: Sumizome and Kumadori Chirashi
Source: World of Japanese Tattooing

At first, Sumizome (or cherry tree spirit) seemed to control the whole back. Her pale face sits near the top, dark hair and the large round form closing around it. Below, the kimono makes one huge shape down the center. I assumed that was where the rhythm would come from.

Then I tried ignoring her face and comparing how much visual information was packed into different areas. The large cherry blossom clusters around the shoulders and arms are easy to catch. My eye can move from one red group to the next without much effort. Inside the kimono, the flowers become smaller, more numerous, and mixed into folds, lines, and other patterns. I have to move closer and stay longer.

The lower back changes again. Dark clouds take over around the thighs, and their larger repeated marks are easier to take in than the robe above. On the front, similar dark clouds, blossoms, and new-to-the-scene pale theatrical faces (Kumadori) create two busy streams. The open skin down the center keeps those streams apart, while the flowers and faces appear at different heights instead of forming even pairs.

In my head I kept calling this rhythm, but I think this first entry is really about pace. I mean this is really about how fast or slow the looking feels. Additionally, density is one visible condition that changes it. Large, clear groups let me move. Small, crowded passages make me linger. The suit does not need to point my eye along one exact route. It gives me areas that can be understood at different speeds.

Just as a side note: This is the first half of the rhythm experiment. The next suit will look at variation and cadence, or how returns, gaps, accents, and pauses are arranged. Together, the two may explain why repetition alone never felt like enough to create that feeling of aliveness. Anyways, where does this suit (or any suit) let your eye move quickly, and where does it make you stop?

Entry 10: Visual Weight
Artist: Horiuno II
Theme: Takiyasha Hime
Source: World of Japanese Tattooing 

Just on the first glance I expected one side of this bodysuit to feel heavier than the other. The back is dominated by an enormous umbrella that fills almost the entire upper left side. Across from it sits a single chrysanthemum that seems far too small to compete. Lower down, a relatively simple face sits above a robe packed with intricate patterns. Nothing is evenly divided, yet nothing feels like it's tipping.

Look at the front, though. Did you notice it solves the same problem? Each shoulder begins with a large chrysanthemum in almost the same place. It feels symmetrical for a moment. Then everything underneath breaks apart. The flowers spread into different constellations across the torso and sleeves. Different sizes. Different spacing. Different paths. Horiuno establishes stability first, then immediately abandons symmetry without ever losing a sense of balance.

I want to take this a step further. Try this on both sides of the suit. Stop counting flowers or patterns. Start comparing what feels heavy. The umbrella suddenly becomes the most important thing on the back, even though it's surprisingly simple. Now imagine filling every quiet black passage with another chrysanthemum. The suit immediately feels crowded. Those quiet areas weren't waiting to be decorated. They were already helping carry the composition. At first, I thought I was simply comparing visual weight. Then I realized I was asking a different question: Why doesn't this composition collapse?

Every part seems to have a job. The umbrella has a job. The chrysanthemums have a job. The quiet passages have a job. Even the restrained reds have a job. They don't all carry the same visual weight. They don't need to. Each contributes the amount of weight the composition asks of it. The umbrella, chrysanthemum, robe, and empty spaces all become counterweights. Together, everything works to keep the whole suit in balance. 

Once I started looking for that responsibility instead of simply looking for symmetry, the same solution kept appearing in different forms. 

One enormous circle balances an entire family of smaller circles. The umbrella, chrysanthemums, robe patterns, flower centers, and even some of the curls in the background all repeat the same circular language. Some circles are huge and almost empty. Others are tiny and incredibly detailed. None of them match, but together they feel related. Then color started participating in that balance. The umbrella is one of the largest shapes in the suit, but it's mostly blue-gray and black. The warmest reds are reserved for the chrysanthemums, robe accents, and scattered leaves. No single patch of red dominates. Instead, the warm colors appear in small doses across the body. They're less like one focal point and more like visual punctuation, quietly reminding your eye where to go next.

That made me wonder if color has visual weight too. We've already seen that size, detail, simplicity, and even quiet space can change how heavy something feels. Maybe color belongs on that list. If the umbrella were bright vermilion instead of muted blue-gray, it would probably overpower everything around it. Instead, its restrained palette lets it remain enormous without becoming overwhelming. The warm colors gather your attention. The cooler colors give it somewhere to stay.

That was the moment the whole suit changed for me. Maybe balance isn't created because things match. Maybe it's created because completely different things each carry the amount of visual responsibility the composition asks of them. This delicate balancing act helps keep a bodysuit interesting and alive. 

Entry 9: Scale
Artists: Horiyoshi II
Theme: Orochi and Sakube
Source: World of Japanese Tattooing

I thought Horiyoshi II’s Orochi felt enormous because he drew it large. Then I noticed how little of the serpent he actually lets us see at one time.

Sakube’s pale face pulls me into the composition. His gaze points toward the open jaws, his hair streams away, and even the wind bars seem to push outward from that corner. The force of the Orochi spreads beyond the edges of its head. From there, I try to follow the body. Or at least I try to.

One section disappears behind the background. Another returns beside Sakube. Lower coils are interrupted by waves, flowers, rocks, and the edge of the body. Instead of one continuous snake, Horiyoshi II gives us a series of sightings arranged in a giant zigzag.

So I did something. Maybe you can try it, too. Try removing the background in your mind. Sakube is suddenly fighting separate pieces of a reptile: a head, several heavy coils, and no clear explanation for how much body connects them.

Now add the background back in. The missing sections begin to connect. Coils recede into darkness, slither between rocks, and reappear through the storm. Rather than lying across the back, the Orochi seems to move through it.

The smaller snakes on the front make the Orochi measurable for a moment. They show me what an ‘ordinary’ serpent looks like at this scale. Then I return to the back, where the head and coils suddenly feel enormous.

Horiyoshi II uses concealment to push past the limits of the human back. I’m still blown away, which feels like an appropriately bad joke for a backpiece with this much wind.

Entry 8, part 2: Solving the Body Through Completing Shapes
Artist: Horiyoshi I
Theme: Dragons
Source: World of Japanese Tattooing

I thought I had figured out what was happening. I stopped naming the figures, softened my gaze, and watched one large shape gradually divide into two before dissolving into the surrounding elements. Then I looked at the front. Instead of branching, everything began completing.

At first glance, it looks as though there is one dragon on each leg. Looking longer, that isn’t quite true. The paired composition actually begins higher, around the stomach and hips. Two dragon heads appear there first, setting up the relationship before it even reaches the thighs. From that point downward, the dragons don’t simply continue. They reorganize.

One body offers broad coils and repeated red bellies before its head becomes obvious lower on the leg. The other reveals its head almost immediately, then carries its curves downward through clouds and waves. The dragons aren’t mirrored, and they don’t compete for attention. They seem to divide the work between them.

That lower torso area keeps me thinking. Anatomically, it’s where one body becomes two legs. Instead of treating that change as a break, Horiyoshi I does something interesting. He begins the relationship between the legs before the composition ever reaches them. The paired dragon heads turn the pelvis into a hinge, establishing the dialogue before the composition descends onto separate limbs. By the time the dragons reach the thighs, they’re already completing one another.

So I started looking slower and softer. By softer, I mean letting go of my first thought and allowing other relationships to emerge. Try it. It begins to feel less like two dragons and more like large curves completing one another across the centerline. One C-curve opens space for another. One head appears where the opposite side withholds one. The clouds aren’t separating the dragons so much as stitching them together. From the belly to the ankles, the larger forms seem to answer one another like neighboring pieces of a puzzle rather than isolated pictures.

If the body turns the conversation changes again. A dragon that seemed incomplete from the front suddenly gathers into a readable figure across the outside of the thigh. If it turns more another head appears lower on the opposite leg, reconnecting with forms that had seemed unrelated before. The tattoo hasn’t changed. Only the viewpoint has.

Next, try isolating the thighs. Imagine there is nothing above the waist and nothing below the knees. Seen straight on, the gap between the legs becomes an axis, and the thighs read almost like one broad composition. Now remove those imaginary borders and slowly rotate the body. The paired field separates into two independent compositions before joining together again from another angle. It’s crazy.

What we saw before was a back organized by branching. One large form became two, and two gradually dissolved into the surrounding world. We have something different here on the front. The front organizes by completion. Separate forms finish one another across the body before separating again as the viewer moves. On both sides, the pelvis reorganizes one visual system into another. At the ankles, the tattooed world returns to bare skin.

For me, solving the body used to mean deciding what subject belonged on each body part. Maybe how to max out each space, too. Now I’m beginning to think that, with Japanese bodysuits, that may be only the beginning. Maybe solving the body isn’t only about fitting images onto anatomy. Maybe it’s about deciding how every major form will relate to every other form as the body bends, turns, separates, and comes back together again.

What changes when we stop asking what subject belongs on each body part and start asking what kind of relationship each surface can create?

Entry 8: Solving the Body with Hidden Geometry
Artist: Horiyoshi I
Theme: Fudō Myōō
Source: World of Japanese Tattooing

Solving the limbs is something large-scale tattooing has to do in a way a painting never does. When I first saw this suit, I thought the main challenge was keeping Fudō Myōō connected to everything around him.

When I soften my gaze at the backpiece, the deity’s smaller details collapse into a larger structure: a tall central line held inside a broad arch and a heavy base. Fudō’s sword establishes the vertical. His flames widen across the shoulders, and his seated body fills the lower back. Together all of these parts form a loose pentagon with his head near the top. Horiyoshi I isn’t treating the back like a rectangular print pasted onto skin.

Then the composition reaches the hips and splits. Two attendants occupy the broad upper thighs, each crossing the waist, hip, and crease in a different way. A rock supports one. A swirling cloud supports the other. Below them, figures give way to waves and currents. The water first angles inward toward the space between the legs, pulling the two thighs together visually. After crossing the knees, those currents turn downward and descend almost vertically along the calves into swirls and bubbles. The background doesn’t only connect the sections. It changes direction to follow the body. The farther the composition travels from Fudō Myōō, the less it behaves like a figure and the more it behaves like weather.

When I soften my gaze again, each calf becomes a narrowing mass that loosely repeats the backpiece’s shape upside down. I often imagine what a body surface would look like before a subject is placed on top of it. Here, Horiyoshi I almost lets us see that underlying structure.

But looking at those shapes together changed the observation again. I stopped seeing only a deity, two attendants, and the background surrounding them. I started seeing the larger tattooed forms relating to one another.

Try looking from the top downward without naming the subjects. The back begins with one monumental central mass. At the hips, that structure divides into two smaller figurative masses. Below the knees, those forms loosen further into currents, swirls, and bubbles. One becomes two, and two gradually dissolve into the surrounding elements before the composition reaches the ankles.

The hidden geometry is not only holding each figure together or fitting each image to its part of the body. The larger forms seem to echo one another as the composition branches, narrows, and becomes less figurative. What begins as a monument gradually disperses into currents and waves.

(Sorry for the rant. Actually cut this one in half and will do the front side next)

Entry 7: Space Between Colors
Artist: Horigoro III
Theme: Tennyo Wearing a Hagoromo
Book: World of Japanese Tattooing

I kept thinking this bodysuit was built on contrast. I thought the colors were separating the forms. Then I noticed the skin between them.

Look closely at the feathers of the tennyo’s hagoromo. Many aren’t filled edge to edge. Along one side, Horigoro leaves a thin channel of untattooed skin. Up close, those channels keep the red and blue-green feathers from merging into heavier blocks. Their repetition also gives the wings a steady rhythm. The same device appears in her hair, where narrow light breaks keep one dark mass from disappearing into another.

Now step back. The gaps nearly vanish. The blue-green begins to join the larger field of darks, while the red remains bright and energetic.

This is separation without disconnection. The skin keeps each form readable without pulling the figure apart. Several colors can belong to one atmosphere without collapsing into one mass.

Try it on the front too. Look at the large chrysanthemums on the thighs and trace the thin skin channels between the petals. Up close, each petal stays distinct. From a distance, the flower holds together.

The space isn’t leftover. It’s part of the palette.

Entry 6: Interference—>Integration—>Immersion
Artist: Horihide (Yokosuka)
Source: Horihide’s World

***So I just didn’t have the heart to chop this entry down because I feel like this subject covers something that really helps in bodysuit appreciation. Anywho, here we go:

No matter how I look at this back piece, the dragon never feels like it's just pasted onto the skin. That was my immediate impression, but it took me a while to figure out why. To crack it, I tried an experiment I’ve been using more often with these full bodysuits: I started mentally subtracting elements.

First, I imagined removing the dragon. What’s left is a massive backdrop of clouds, flames, waves, and spirals. They wrap around the body well enough, but they feel aimless. Then I tried the opposite. I kept the dragon and erased the background. The head is still impressive and the coils are beautifully drawn, but suddenly they start bumping into each other. Without the background, the body looks flat. Neither version works on its own, which made me realize the most interesting part of the tattoo isn't the dragon or the background at all. It's what happens between them.

Once I started looking for that relationship, I couldn't unsee it. Clouds drift across the dragon before revealing another coil. Flames weave between sections of its body. Waves cut off the lower coils before they disappear and resurface elsewhere. The environment isn't just decorating the dragon. It's constantly interrupting it. Because every cloud, wave, and flame is allowed to cross in front of the main subject, the dragon never settles into a flat image sitting on top of the skin. These repeated interruptions create layers, turning interference into integration. The dragon no longer feels like it has been placed inside an environment. It begins to feel like it belongs to one.

On the front of the suit, Horihide uses this same approach with the chrysanthemums. Some flowers remain completely exposed, while others sink behind waves or clouds. Some skim the surface, while others are deeply submerged. Even the splashes aren't mechanical. A few are just light ripples around the petals, while others nearly swallow a flower whole. By constantly changing how isolated or embedded each flower is, Horihide slows down my gaze. I catch myself imagining that the flowers are being carried by an actual current, clustering together in some places before drifting apart again, but that feeling comes after the observation. What I can actually see is that every flower negotiates its space a little differently.

Color plays into this same idea, though I always hesitate to talk about color because I’m colorblind. To my eyes, the reds, yellows, and blues hit a middle ground between standing out and blending in. The flowers are distinct enough that I don't lose them, but they never completely separate themselves from the surrounding clouds and waves. Color seems to be doing the same job as the physical overlaps. It makes a subject readable before quietly pulling it back into the atmosphere around it.

By the third or fourth look at the suit, I stopped thinking about dragons, flowers, clouds, and waves as separate things and started seeing them as a single ecosystem. Like words building into a sentence, every interruption links one element to the next until the composition stops behaving like a collection of individual images and starts acting like a real place. The rule of the suit is simple: nothing is allowed to exist by itself.

Without the background's interruptions, the dragon becomes decoration rather than something that feels embedded in its world. Without the subjects, the background loses much of its purpose. It's this constant sharing of space that creates immersion. Traditional bodysuits don't simply place a subject in front of a background. They let the background continually push back until the distinction between figure and environment begins to soften. The next time I look at a bodysuit, I'm giving myself one simple instruction: pick one subject, stop looking at the subject itself, and watch everything that interrupts it. I have a feeling that's where a surprising amount of the composition is quietly happening.

Title: Shibuya Horiken Bunshin Sakuhinshu

Before getting to the photos inside I gotta say something. The quality of this book is on another level. The pages and covers remind me of the old Keibunsha books I have. We have sections on types of tattoos (Suikoden characters, mythical beasts, etc.) with concise explanations. Then a section on the process of tattooing a backpiece from beginning to end, and then finally a section on two artists that are in Horiken’s family.

Oddly enough my favorite part is where Horiken’s older tattoos are. We get to see backpieces that are 20+ years old. As someone in the process of getting a bodysuit, seeing the longevity of great craftsmanship is encouraging.

Yes you will see more of the gentleman with the giant koi and there is an obligatory section on the history of japanese tattooing, but all is appreciated. This oone will be a classic and inspires what I love: slow appreciation of bodysuits.

Oh and there is a section on smaller pieces, too. Get this book while you can. Before the ebay scalpers start gauging people.

Entry 5: Staying Connected
Artist: Horihide (Yokosuka)
Theme: Oniwakamaru and Koi
Book: Horihide’s World

What is keeping this suit together? Something here is keeping my eyes from stopping at every image. I thought the warrior and dragons were carrying this bodysuit, but no. The longer I looked, the more it felt like the bars were doing the real work. I see a throughline where these images should be stopping me. I actually see many.

These bars work in groups together and pull my eyes around the torso following the anatomy under the skin. If I imagine there is no subject matter above them, It’s almost like they are following a map, building momentum as they go the path of least resistance. Some go down the back, overlapping others that want to go around the torso. Some converge at the shoulder, and others are destined to bump into rocks on their way down the body. Everything feels like it already had somewhere it was going before the subjects appeared.

It’s only once we are lead to the front of the body there is a disruption. Almost like they walked into a patch of weather, they run into the swirl of clouds pushing the dragons up into view. These swirls don’t appear to stop the current, but exist above them like mist turns into clouds.

Actually, the bars are working together so well that when I take a second look the images start to feel like interruptions of these throughlines. It’s like ‘Wait a second. They aren’t following a map. They just might be the map.’ Look how our warrior isn’t just fighting a carp on an empty field. This grid is basically carrying them. Those dragons on the front aren’t just flying by their own merit anymore. They are pushed and lifted in the the clouds. When their tails get too close to the current, you see the water react by splashing, but still continuing in the same direction. At the bottom? Those rocks are supporting our hero’s legs, and if they weren’t there he would be slipping.

All of this got me thinking. Instead of asking how the background supports the figures, maybe I should be asking how the figures move through a background that already has its own structure. I don’t even know if ‘Background’ is the right word for it anymore. Are we looking at bodysuits backwards?

Entry 4: Visual Pecking Order
Artist: Horibun
Theme: Fudō Myōō and Yūten
Book: World of Japanese Tattoo

I thought the focus of this suit would be Fudō Myōō. Then I thought it might be the confrontation between Fudō and Yūten or even the surrounding atmosphere. After spending more time with it, though, what kept pulling me back was how deliberately Horibun guides my attention through a visual pecking order.

Before I even started reading the two figures, I found myself looking at the halo. The dark cloud mass around it makes Fudō’s face stand out almost immediately. From there my eyes followed the sword diagonally from the pommel down the blade and through the composition toward Yūten being grabbed below. The sword seems to be doing more than belonging to the story. It creates a path that my eyes naturally want to follow.

Yūten feels subordinate in more ways than size alone. His figure echoes the larger curve of Fudō’s body, but he sits further off-center and occupies quieter shapes. Even his robes avoid competing with the dense patterns of Fudō’s garments. Everything seems arranged to keep bringing me back to the central figure.

Only after I understood the main figures did I begin noticing the surrounding clouds. Then the maple leaves started appearing. What struck me is that the leaves aren’t hidden. They’re visible from the beginning. They simply don’t compete with the halo, face, hands, and sword. The whole composition seems to make some things impossible to ignore while allowing other details to wait their turn.

That made me wonder if this pecking order is less about focal points and more about sequence. Not just what we notice first, but what we notice later.

Do your eyes follow the same route through the image, or do you notice something different first?

Artist: Horiuno III
Theme: Back Kintaro, carp and cherry blossoms; Front is carp and cherry Blossoms
Book: World of Japanese Tattooing

Flipping these pages back and forth over and over again in the book, I’m noticing something. A backpiece isn’t always the whole story. Sometimes it feels more like the doorway into the rest of the bodysuit.

In this Horiuno III suit, Kintaro is clearly on the back, locked in with a huge carp. That is the obvious place to begin. But the longer I look, the more the world of the suit seems to move beyond that first view.

Carp show up on the sides, arms, and thighs. The same water and wave shapes keep returning around the body. Cherry blossoms and small red petals scatter through those same currents. Even the red starts to feel like a connector: Kintaro’s red, the red carp, the red blossoms, and those little red petals keep showing up in different places.

That changed how I saw the suit. It doesn’t feel like “Kintaro on the back, then some matching tattoos around him.” It feels more like one whole place wrapped around a body.

The body naturally breaks the image apart. The back disappears from the front. Arms pull away from the ribs. Thighs separate from the hips. So the suit gives you repeated clues that reconnect everything.

What detail makes a bodysuit feel connected to you? The subject, the background, the color, the repeated motifs, or something else?