⁍ Shodai Horiren got her first tattoo as a lark on a trip to Australia nearly three decades ago.

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⁍ Now, tattooed head to foot, even on her shaven scalp, she is one of Japan’s most renowned traditional tattoo artists.

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⁍ Tattoos have been linked to criminals for as long as 400 years, most recently to yakuza gang members.

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– For centuries, tattoos have been linked to crime, with yakuza gang members sporting full-body ink that stops short of hands and neck, allowing them to hide under regular clothes. But the popularity of Western rock music, with musicians increasingly sporting tattoos, has eaten away at this bias and may signal a shift in attitude—perhaps leading the industry to regulate itself, giving it a more mainstream image, reports Reuters. Referring to them as tattoos rather than “irezumi”—literally meaning “inserting ink”—as is becoming more common, may also help give them a stylish, fashionable veneer. “Some people get tattoos for deep reasons, but I do it because they’re cute, the same way I might buy a nice blouse,” says Mari Okasaka, 48, a part-time worker who got her first tattoo at 28. Her 24-year-old son, Tenji, is working toward having his whole body covered in ink and color. Tattoo devotees are edging into the open as well, meeting at large parties to bare and share their designs. “We may have tattoos but we are happy and bright people,” says party organizer and scrapyard worker Hiroyuki Nemoto. Surfer and TV set-maker Takashi Mikajiri, though, is still stopped on some beaches and ordered to cover up. Riehara, who works in a shop dressing tourists in kimonos, says her shocked father has still not seen her full back tattoo. “In America, if you have a tattoo, people don’t care.”