First, tell me a bit about yourself.

I was born in 1957, and studied chemistry in college. I had many varied interests, and many opportunities to go overseas, so it was natural that I should also encounter body piercing. I like new information, so much so that when personal computers came on the market, I leapt to buy one. I like making things on my own, and devising better techniques for making and doing things.

How did piercing and body modification first enter your life?

I first started body piercing nine years ago. Before that time, I had some fragmentary knowledge of body piercing, and I happened to acquire a book, and a video from PFIQ. So then I tried it myself. I was either thirty-one or two. I'm the kind of person that once I've decided to try my hand at something, I have to take it to the point that I feel that I've really absorbed it, or I'm just not satisfied. So, in a short time, I had tried all the piercings. Starting from the easy ones, moving toward more difficult ones, repeating and redoing as I went, until after about six months I was finished. That was my first experiment with piercing, and since that time I have continued to try various experiments on my own body.

How would you describe the Japanese piercing scene?

Even before I introduced body piercing to Japan, young men in the rock scene had been piercing their ears like women. But the term "body piercing" was unknown, and the average young person had no idea that the body could be pierced. On the other hand, piercing was known in SM circles. Most of it was based on pre-war European ideas passed down and distorted over time, and was different from today's American piercing both in the materials used for jewelry and in the piercing techniques. Furthermore, body piercing was strongly associated with dominant master-types in the SM world. They did piercing in their own style, and had lots of problems. When the media began introducing body piercing, people who were using incorrect techniques learned to use correct ones. At the same time, young people began to think piercing looked interesting, and piercing soon became fashionable.

Is it true that (at least in the past) Japanese piercers were not allowed to pierce their clients, but rather "assisted" them in doing their own piercings?

The term "assisting" exists, but it's really piercing. If we weren't actually doing people's pierces, there wouldn't be as many as several thousand piercers around. The term "assisting" just means that it's being done for free. There has never been any court dispute as to who may pierce in Japan, so there is no legal problem. That's the way it is in Japan now.

Where does piercing fall socially in Japan? Is it more sexual fetish, or fashion?

It's no different from the situation overseas. When piercing came into Japan, it didn't spread gradually, rather it spread rapidly. Gay people, fetish, SM Mania--the Japanese like SM, they're more like Europeans than Americans in that way--the spread of piercing probably was spurred on by that. Anyway, it spread through all the scenes at once.

In your travels around the world, how would you say that the piercing and modification is different (and similar) to the West?

In terms of differences between Japan and the West (Europe/America), in Japan there are many people who don't like to relay information, people who are closed. They probably exist overseas too, but in Japan, information is not so free. When somebody finds some information or an idea, they don't really put it out. For example, suppose there's a good piercing shop. Now, you'd expect a good shop to teach, but there are people who don't want to teach. They want to make their techniques their secret, and just enjoy them for themselves. There are groups of peole like that, who present a closed face.

Tribal tattoos, branding and scarification are not known. In other words, tattoo as ritual of passage and other modifications are not known. That's a big difference from the West, and one that I think is very unfortunate.

How do people on the street react to you, and to other pierced people?

In Japan these days, piercing is normal. In Japan, when something starts to spread, it soon spreads to the far reaches of the country. Now, in Japan, there is no one who doesn't know the word "body piercing". Even if they've never seen it, they know that something by that name is popular. It's already becoming a normal part of life. In Japan, even something that is looked at strangely becomes natural if enough people do it. Maybe that's a special Japanese characteristic, but anyway, piercing is being accepted into society as a perfectly normal thing.

In your work their seems to be a specific interest in some more unusual piercings (surface piercings, etc) -- why is this?

I've tried all the piercings that are done overseas. I've also done many that aren't done overseas, but I haven't taken any pictures of them yet. I've already done all the ones being done by others, and am now trying new piercings. I was putting two hoops into one ear hole before any one else, and also began experimenting with industrial stuff early on. I just haven't presented my work. Having done all the regular pierces, I'm continuing to experiment with non-standard pierces.

Is that a photo of a (tooth) gum piercing?

Japanese are the kind of people that, when somebody gets some information or idea from somewhere, they think that that's all there is. They also think that it's natural to rise to it. If they've seen such-and-such a piercing somewhere, they have to be able to do it too. A piercing shop that can't do it will be thought a fake. In the same way, customers will think that if an overseas shop can do it, so can a Japanese shop. Naturally, we can do this kind of piercing (a gum piercing) too.

I notice that many (all?) of your tattoos are self-done.

I wanted to confirm that tribal tattoos are not simply patterns, but that they are a way of designing the entire human body. I undertook to test that with my own body. Then there were the basic principles of ink tattoos, and also the materials used. When I experimented with those three things, this is what resulted.

The more information there is, the better. Now, there is far too little exchange of information among piercers. There is also not enough exchange of technical know-how. It's not enough to exchange information about the results of a certain piercing. Unless we work together to exchange information about success rates, detailed refinements in creative techniques and the like, piercing won't advance. Instead of acting alone, we need to have something like a technical or professional association.

Body piercing will advance when all this information is gathered in one place, where we can repeatedly access it, take it home, and try it out. When I went overseas, I found that everyone said something different. Although we criticize each other's work, it would be better to find the good points, and incorporate them into our own work. For that reason, it's a good thing that BME avoids putting a value on people's work. If we started saying this or that is good or bad the freedom of the Internet would disappear.

The age of the amateur is already over. Gauntlet/PFIQ and such have been gathering up and saving information from amateurs, but that period is finished. At tattoo conventions, artists exchange information between themselves, but because you can easily look at a tatoo and understand it, It's possible to walk away with someone's idea. But in the case of piercing, things like how the piercer dealt with the inevitable differences in individual bodies' construction, and what kinds of problems were encountered, are important. With Gauntlet and Fakir, there are differences of opinion. It would be good if we could somehow deal with that and go on, I think.