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The story
Japan’s marathon record holder Suguru Osako went shirtless in a running video he posted to Instagram, revealing tattoos below his collarbone and on his arms — and it became a hot topic on 5ch’s Entertainment/Sports Breaking News+ board. Osako has previously said he “idolized bad boys,” and some posters pointed out that the tattoos aren’t actually new at all. The thread filled up with a mix of bewildered comments like “why would he get those?” and more indifferent ones like “who cares, really?”, and the discussion eventually spiraled into a broader debate about how Japan and other countries view tattoos differently.
Mon, Oct 12, 6:40 AM
Men’s marathon Japanese record holder Suguru Osako’s running footage is making waves.
He posted a video on Instagram of himself running along a sidewalk. Along with shots of his beautiful running form, the end of the clip shows him shirtless, revealing tattoos below his collarbone and on his arms.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
is literally what he said, after all
Still a pro athlete?
He started getting them recently.
Swimming keeps you looking the youngest.
marathon's Suguru Osako.
A late-blooming delinquent, huh lol
So many people live behind a front
even if they're famous or have impressive accomplishments
Coming from someone on 5ch who hides their face and name while posting anonymously online,
saying other people lack confidence in their bare selves
is basically a self-deprecating joke at this point
If he's going to keep up this mysterious self-expression thing with ink and piercings in both ears,
he might as well have become a musician
He'd probably need AI to make the music for him
but getting inked in your mid-30s makes no sense
I'm in my 40s and I'm actually debating getting a Sakuyan-style protective charm tattoo myself
If you're implying Osako's basically a criminal just because he has a tattoo, I think you're a little unhinged
If you call that prejudice, I can't really argue back
People say it's normal overseas, but Japan has a culture where tattoos are for society's outcasts, so I think that reaction is natural
It's not prejudice — that's just how ordinary Japanese people feel
Someone already pointed out that he only started running shirtless after getting the tattoos lol
A washed-up yakuza guy once told me that once you get inked, you desperately want to show it off to people
He could just get it removed
If he wants to show it off, he should've gone bold and crisp
Nah, it's just fading with age
It's because the 'top performer = saint' mentality runs rampant
For a simple sport like this, the results come down to natural talent plus whether you keep up a baseline level of maintenance
Foreigners do it too — in the West, if a guy dresses in an unmanly way they mock him as gay, and if a woman gets a buzz cut they mock her as a lesbian
In photos from last year's race he only had the one on his chest — does ink really fade this much in under a year?
Oh, I see
Then maybe it's intentional
Maybe he's going for a sumi-e ink-painting look
That right there is the lamest part, honestly
Whether he gets tattoos or not doesn't really matter to me
Background and Key Points of the Debate
In Japan, tattoos have long been associated with images of “yakuza” and “society’s outcasts,” and exclusionary customs persist at the everyday level — public bathhouses and hot springs banning tattooed visitors, for instance. Overseas, by contrast, tattoos are nothing unusual among athletes, and that gap became the thread’s central fault line. Those defending Osako framed it as “normal overseas” and “his own personal choice,” while critics countered that “that’s how it is abroad, but in Japan the general public’s sense is still that tattoos are for society’s outcasts” — turning the cultural difference itself into the debate. A claim also surfaced that “there’s a statistical correlation between tattoos and criminals,” though no source was given, and it’s worth noting this was personal impression being passed off as general fact. Osako himself has previously said he “idolized bad boys,” and several posters pointed out that the tattoo isn’t new at all — judging by how faded it is, he likely got it a good while ago. In other words, this wasn’t really a “new revelation” so much as something already there being made newly visible by the video, and that’s what drove the reaction.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Entertainment/Sports Breaking News+) thread “Shock Over Suguru Osako’s ‘Tattoo-Covered’ Running Look: ‘He Got Inked?!’ / ‘Why Would He Get Those?’ / ‘Who Cares, Really?’.”
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