This Saturday’s Shooto MMA event will be held at Shinjuku Face (JP only) in Kabukicho, the entertainment and red-light district in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. There’s a line-up of young, talented fighters who will be making their Shooto debut. If successful in Shooto these fighters will have a chance to fight in Japan’s elite mixed martial arts organization, DREAM (JP only), the sister organization of K-1 kickboxing.
Since 2002 I owned a company which specialized in broadcast and professional video equipment sales, rentals and production. Our customer base included television stations, freelance cameraman and producers, small to large sized production companies Continue reading
Parking your car in Tokyo is a complete nightmare. There’s no way around it. My parking bill alone costs more than most peoples’ car payments in the USA. Continue reading
A tattoo artist in Nagoya was arrested today for tattooing a 15-year old boy. The boy provided a fake ID in the form of a health care certificate and the artist claims to have been unaware of the boy’s real age. The 45 year old tattoo artist is pleading innocent to violating a local ordinance which protects minors. If found guilty he could face time in jail.
The tattoo, which was two sessions deep, is the beginning of a traditional Japanese backpiece of a dragon and phoenix. Most tattoos are outlined with a machine and then shaded by hand-poking, also known as ‘tebori’. Since the tattoo only went two sessions I suspect the outline isn’t finished yet. But some tattoo artists work faster than others so it’s hard to determine the progress without knowing the artist’s normal pace and the boy’s tolerance for pain.
The boy, who is no stranger to the authorities, told the police he is a fan of yakuza movies. Police say the boy was arrested in January for stealing a car…and other charges. The police discovered the tattoo during routine questioning for an unrelated incident. The boy was being watched by police since his January arrest and he is a suspect in another case involving stolen merchandise.
Yesterday, I had the chance to meet with Enson “Yamato Damashii” Inoue at his Shooto gym, ‘Purebred‘, in Higashi Omiya, Saitama.
