Hi All,
I am planning to move to Japan in the next 6 months and am a competitive bodybuilder with a lot of tattoos. I have a couple of questions where I am seeking guidance/help.
Question 1) I have been reading online and pretty much everywhere I look, in Japan anabolic steroids are legal but acquiring syringes & needles are not and it is extremely difficult to acquire + illegal to import. Do you have advice or guidance on if these rules have changed or if there are any practical approaches to this as I do not want to be having any issues with the law.
Question 2) Could you give me some insight into issues I may face living there as I have many tattoos and specifically ones that are difficult to cover (hands/knuckles)?
Any help or advice is greatly appreciated.
Thank you
5 comments
Til body builders are roid heads. No you can’t get syringes, some medications that are done injection can be done by the doctor office but I assume you’d need a legitimate medical need. I don’t think being a beef cake is a medical need.
Tattoos: hard to get a job, no onsen for you. People will look at you funny or avoid you entirely.
Do you have a job? How do you plan to even live here?
Not sure about your first question, but if you are relocating for a job and don’t have to job search, you should be fine with tattoos. People might give you weird looks(potential to be stopped by police??), but everyday life shouldn’t be too hard. There are tattoo friendly onsen you could go to, but probably difficult if you wanted to go to a beach or waterpark in the summer.
Being a visible foreigner and not being an English teacher gives you way more leeway with tattoos than people here make it seem. Of course, you might/will have issues with beaches, pools, gyms and onsen — but we haven’t had any issues finding onsen that either have no tattoo policy or offer private onsen in our time here. (My husband has tattoos on his arms.) If you’re a gym bro, you’ll probably want to figure out where you’ll be allowed to train. I don’t know if places will let you get away with hand tattoos, covered or not.
One of my husbands’ friends (another foreigner) has face and hand tattoos. He was even able to rent a commercial space without issues, and he speaks no Japanese. Your milage may vary, but in Tokyo, it’s not a death sentence for foreigners outside of jobs that involve kids or involved needing to look a certain way.
The stigma is much stronger for Japanese citizens. None of the Japanese people we know who are heavily tattooed have conventional jobs.
Most answers have been given already, and I know nothing about steroids. But you may run into slim pickings, when it comes to find a gym that accepts your tattoos.
There’s quite a few people in Osaka/Kansai with tattoos, being a gaijin definitely helps. Tokyo it’s not as common. Twice when checking into capsule hotels I was told to remove my shirt or I couldn’t stay there, expect similar ridiculousness. People will look but most won’t care. If you’re polite, they will be polite.
I’m curious about the needles thing as well so I’m subbing to learn. I’m on HRT and have not been able to get a straight answer about it either, everyone always drops the stupid comments you’ve seen here. No one has been able to give actual helpful information about bringing my prescription to Japan. If you’re in Tokyo the Golds Shibuya might be a good place to ask around, last time I was there (2015) they had Anavar and Clen on the shelf, plenty of guys were clearly cycling and was definitely the most lenient when it came to training rules.