Irezumi - An Interview with Andreas Coenen

Irezumi (入れ墨) is one of the oldest tattoo traditions in the world. Full-body compositions, hand-poked ink and motifs that have been refined over centuries.

Our friend Andreas Coenen has spent years exploring this world and tracing his own personal route within it. As someone with a respected name in the international tattoo scene as an artist, collector and publisher, he recently released IKI-The Essence. A book documenting the body of work of four Irezumi masters as well as their approach to the artform and their daily routines. What started as a simple outline for a blog post evolved in an hour long interview, where Andreas takes us on the road with him.

Who Is Andreas Coenen?

Andreas Coenen is alongside Bunshin Horitoshi, one of the founders of Yokuzuna Coenen Publishing. A dedicated publishing house specialized in books about traditional Japanese tattoo artists from Japan. IKI-The Essence is their most ambitious project so far portraiting four Irezumi masters, their craft and the philosophy — the iki (粋) — that defines it. The book is less tattoo reference material as it is a meditation on mastery showing us a rare glimpse into an artform practiced in the shadows.

Purchase IKI — The Essence at Yokuzuna Coenen Publishing.

A Short History To Warm-Up

Irezumi as a decorative artform took shape during the Edo period (1600–1868), driven partly by the popularity of the Chinese novel Suikoden (illustrated by Kuniyoshi Utagawa). Its woodblock illustrations of tattooed warriors created such a hype that a new class of specialised artists called Horishi emerged.

Then the Meiji government banned Irezumi in 1868 because Japan at the time was opening to the West and tattooing didn't fit the image they wanted to project. Paradoxically, this is exactly when it captured Western attention and foreign visitors were looking explicitly for what has been forced to operate underground. The Horishi kept working in the back rooms.

Legalized again in 1948 the artform and tradition carried a new complication by its deep association with yakuza culture where full-bodysuit tattoos had become iconic during the prohibition years. That stigma never really went away so that even today you find many Japanese Onsen still banning tattooed customers.

What survived all of this is what Andreas documents in IKI. A living tradition, practiced by a shrinking number of artists, using methods that haven't fundamentally changed in 200 years.

A Few Terms Worth Knowing Before You Watch

Tebori: The hand-poke technique central to traditional Irezumi. Needles bound to a wooden or bamboo handle, worked manually. Slower than a machine. Practitioners say the quality of ink saturation is incomparable.

Horishi: A traditional Irezumi master. The title carries weight; it's not self-assigned.

Iki (粋): An Edo-period aesthetic concept: understated elegance, effortless refinement, the quality of something that doesn't try too hard. It's the hardest thing to define and the first thing you notice when it catches your attention.

Wabori: Traditional Japanese tattooing done by Japanese artists specifically, as distinct from Western-style Japanese tattoo work.

Why This Connects to What We Do

Irezumi and Budō pull from the same current. The shokunin spirit which is a term for an artisan's total commitment to the craft, runs through both. The Horishi and the Martial Artist are doing practically the same thing: submitting to a practice that demands more than skill. It needs patience, repetition and the acceptance that what you're about to build demands time to develop.

That's the Shisa reference point. Not aesthetics alone but the story behind it. Our Kō Collection is built around this spirit through the craftsman's pattern "kōji-tsunagi" which embodies the idea that mastery is built one small, consistent effort at a time.

Thanks for reading & watching