Japanese Letter Tattoo
Japanese tattoos are very popular and they look great. They have a forgein mystic and the beautiful script give them a very deep and rich symbolic flavor. However if you are considering getting a Japanese letter tattoo then you need to be very careful. You see many tattoo shops offer Japanese tattoo designs and letter ideas with their stock in store flash. Unfortunetly many of these designs have been bastardized and are incorrect.
Being just a beginning student of Japanese and only know 500 or so Kanji I can frequently spot really bad Japanese tattoos. If you ask the person sporting that tattoo what they think it means they always have some beautiful answer like it is the symbol for love or it is a symbol for strength. Unfrotunetly little to they know they are missing a major part of the character, or the character has been reversed or even more frequently is a mirror image. You see Kanji the script that is most frequently used for Japanese tattoos is a very complex writing system that involves making the sybols by strokes. Each stroke must come int he right order and the right location for the symbol to be read correctly. IF anything is off the character is illegible or even worse can have another meaning.
If you are considering getting a Japanese letter tattoo then please be forewarned, plan ahead and pay a professional to double check the translation and reading of the design. DO NOT just go into a tattoo shop and purchase the stock flash from the wall that look beautiful. You have no idea what it could be saying.
Instead take some time. Choose the design carefully and then double check it with a native speaker of the language no matter what the tattoo shop tell you.
Source of Lens Photo: Japanese Letter Tattoo
Some Links of Interest
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Japanese Letter Tattoo Resources on Amazon
The Japanese Tattoo
Amazon Price: $19.80 (as of 01/04/2010) 
Bushido : Legacies of the Japanese Tattoo
Amazon Price: $19.77 (as of 01/04/2010)
Tattoos of the Floating World: Ukiyo-E Motifs in Japanese Tattoo
Amazon Price: $38.63 (as of 01/04/2010)
Japanese Tattoo Art Stained Glass Coloring Book
Amazon Price: $6.99 (as of 01/04/2010)
Studying Horiyoshi III: A Westerner's Journey into Japanese Tattoo (Schiffer Book) (No. 3)
Amazon Price: $19.77 (as of 01/04/2010)
The Japanese Writing System Overview
Essentially there are three different alphabets for writing in Japanese.
Kanji - This is the alphabet that we most often think of when looking for Japanese tattoo designs. Typically a Kanji is a symbol for something. LIke the Kanji "Hi" is for day. It is a symbol for the sun rising up over the horizon. However, Kanji can not always be read directly as a symbol and sometimes it is more of a letter in that it just produces a sound and is combined with other characters or alphabets.
Hiragana - is the second alphabet typically used in Japan. Hiragana is a symbol to sound relationship in that each symbol represent a sound much like out English Alphabet. You can string any number of Hiragana character together to make a word.
Katakana - Mirrors the Hiragana alphabet and produces all for the same sounds. It is used for forgien words that were not part of the Japanese language originally. So a western name like Frank or Sam would be written in Katakana as would the word computer.
Other Great Tattoo Design Pages On Internet
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Great Japaense Letter Tattoo Pictures From Flickr
If you find any great Kanji Tattoo designs let me know and add them here open for submissions.
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