Horitomo designs for the Yakuza game series

[Iwar]

Found a short article about Horitomo's involvement in designing the tattoos for the characters in the Yakuza video game series. Has anyone played any of these games?

Horitomo-san began tattooing in 1992, although at the time he was not versed in the art of traditional Japanese tattooing. Instead, he focused his studies on the western style of tattoo artistry at a street tattoo studio. At that time studios which advertised their services openly on the streets of Japan were a real rarity.

Following his initial studies, Horitomo-san went on to work at various tattoo studios based in Tokyo and Osaka. In the meantime, he was also actively taking part in various tattoo conventions, including shows in Amsterdam and Spain. In 2001, he finally began to learn traditional Japanese tattooing from a master of the style.

Four years later, Kikuchi-san (producer of the Yakuza series), saw some of Horitomo-san’s work in a magazine which featured several of the best traditional Japanese tattoo artists of the time. He was impressed by what he saw and decided to get in touch with Horitomo-san at his workplace in Yokohama and ask him to be a part of the team for the first Yakuza game. He has continued his relationship with the team ever since that time.