A quiet place for a loud tradition.

Wabori — 和彫り, "Japanese-style tattoo" — is centuries old, and the work being made now is some of the best it has ever been. But it's also a tradition that's easy to flatten: a dragon becomes a wallpaper, a hannya becomes a logo. Meaning gets lost.

This site is a quiet encyclopedia for the parts that matter: what each symbol means and the stories sitting behind it. We add slowly. When we get something wrong, we want to hear about it.

Nothing here is meant as appropriation. The opposite: an attempt to point at the source.