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Radio France Internationale
Radio France Internationale
Lifestyle
Isabelle Martinetti

Photographs lift the lid on Japan's underground 1950s tattoo scene

French journalist Pascal Bagot's book The Tattoo Writer, which has also been translated into English. © Pascal Bagot

Takagi Akimitsu, one of the most prolific and well-known crime novelists of 20th century Japan, was also a brilliant photographer. A French book depicting his photos from 1950s Tokyo was recently on display at the International Tattoo Fair in Paris.

Akimitsu was born in 1920 and died in 1995. He acquired his nickname "the tattoo writer" after his first book Shisei Satsujin Jikenk was published in 1948, which deals with the murders of tattooed people in Tokyo.

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