JAPANESE KANJI TATTOOS

One of the popular designs in tattoo design is the Japanese Kanji Tattoos. These Japanese characters were in fact adapted from Chinese symbols or hanzi. The scripts first came to Japan centuries ago because they were embedded in coins, mirrors, vases and other decorative items from China. Over time, the characters evolved and today, there are obvious differences in Chinese and Japanese characters.

Each Kanji character can have two or more meanings. It is believed that there may be up to ten thousand Kanji characters in existence, to much for a single person to know or recognize. Due to this, the Japanese government reduced the numbers and retained the more commonly used characters. Today, there are about a thousand Kanji characters being used.

The popularity of Kanji as a style for writing tattoo designs was seen to be slowly increasing these past years. This is probably because Kanji tattoos are generally small, thus will cover a minimal area. A simple Kanji character can represent common English words such as love, peace, and strength. One can also get an entire sentence tattooed with only a single symbol to express the message.

As a tattoo, a Kanji character is perfect for first timers. Usually, Kanji tattoos are small, which means shorter exposure to the needle. The Kanji tattoo is one of smallest tattoo that you can get but can be strikingly beautiful and can pack a lot of meaning.

Another alluring thing about Kanji tattoos is no one can read them, except of course if you’re Japanese. Now this could be a good thing because these type of tattoos adds mystery and people cant help but ask what they mean. But the down side of this tattoo is if you don’t know the meaning of the character or just picked a character because it looks cool. You maybe tattooing something that means something that you don’t want.

Before getting a Kanji tattoo, properly research on the character before getting it. To be absolutely sure, get a Japanese tattoo artist to do your Kanji tattoo.