Yasushi Asō, the chief director of Tokyo Beauty Clinic, sparked discussion after saying on his own YouTube channel that the practice of public baths refusing entry to people with tattoos is “a strange rule — I’d call it a denial of human rights.” On the 5ch Entertainment & Sports News+ thread, many users pushed back, defending bathhouses’ policies by citing the need to exclude yakuza members and past incidents of trouble, with some objecting to the very use of the term “human rights” in this context. The discussion also branched out into another angle — some argued it’s actually the lack of private shower stalls at public baths that’s the real human rights issue — drawing attention as a separate point from the tattoo debate.
Dr. Yasushi Asō shares his view on tattoos: being barred from public baths is “a strange rule — I’d call it a denial of human rights”
Yasushi Asō, a doctor who serves as chief director of Tokyo Beauty Clinic and whose group reportedly brings in over 20 billion yen a year, updated his YouTube channel on the 31st with a segment where he shared his personal views on tattoos.
When a staff member asked him, “What do you think about tattoos?” Asō replied, “I don’t think that’s really a doctor’s job. It’d be fine if somewhere like Tokyo University of the Arts had a tattoo department. I really think it should be elevated into that kind of art form.”
If you want a tattoo that badly, don't go whining to society about the consequences.
4AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:30
There are bathhouses that allow tattoos — just go to one of those.
12AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:32
Re: #4
Heard they dropped that policy fast after nothing but trouble.
6AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:30
Don't think you can get away with anything just by yelling "human rights."
7AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:30
Does this guy not know what public sentiment or social norms are?
35AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:38
Re: #7
To Asō, as one member of the public, it may feel like a rights violation — doesn't mean the whole public agrees with him.
9AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:31
It's about keeping yakuza out. You can't tell tattoos apart from their ink. Is there really anyone who doesn't get that?
10AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:32
They get turned away because most people find it scary and off-putting — not that different from how the Anti-Organized Crime Law excludes yakuza members.
11AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:32
The way "human rights" gets tossed around these days is absurd. It's supposed to be a noble concept.
14AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:33
If the rule were literally "anyone with a tattoo can't bathe," sure, that'd be a strange rule — but that's not actually what's happening. He should look into why most public baths restrict tattoos before opening his mouth.
15AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:33
There's a bathhouse that allowed tattoos and reversed the policy within a month after problems started.
16AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:33
Go try running a tattoo-friendly public bath yourself.
17AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:33
From experience, guys with tattoos tend to be intimidating and rough-looking.
18AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:34
Same as with bears — easy to talk big from a distance, but if a guy covered head to toe in tattoos actually walked up next to you, you'd hate it too, wouldn't you?
19AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:34
Because there's a history of yakuza using them to intimidate people.
20AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:34
Guess the human rights of a guy with a face full of tattoos matter too, huh.
21AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:35
Just build your own tattoo-friendly bathhouse and let them in yourself.
22AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:35
Why don't you build a public bath and let tattooed people in yourself? Every business has the right to pick its customers, after all.
28AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:36
"Tattoos now welcome" → chaos ensues, sauna reinstates the ban within a month — we asked the operator what the actual nuisance behavior looked like
https://sirabee.com/2026/09/10/20163581935/
29AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:37
I don't really get it. Public baths technically shouldn't be able to refuse entry just for having ink. What definition of "public bath" is this Asō guy even using?
30AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:37
Didn't a tattoo artist already say it — that the people who get this "artwork" done are idiots?
31AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:37
If he's going to start talking human rights, maybe he should take issue with the Anti-Organized Crime Law too — that thing hounds yakuza relentlessly.
32AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:38
I personally have zero interest in tattoos and don't have any, but I do think it's a human rights issue that Japan's public facilities have no private shower stalls — only big communal baths. That would never fly overseas. As a woman, with periods and everything, being seen by a crowd is rough. I'd at least like some kind of partition.
40AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:40
Re: #32
It really is rough that sentō and other public baths get tax funding as public infrastructure but still have no private shower stalls. Basically the same as those infamous unpartitioned "nihao" toilet stalls (open-stall public toilets, often associated with China).
50AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:45
Being barred from entering your own house without permission is a strange rule too — human rights denial!
53AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:45
Re: #50
But sentō do run on tax money, you know.
56AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:46
Re: #51
If men don't need private stalls, fine, but I wish they'd at least add private showers on the women's side. When your bath breaks and you're stuck sharing the same communal bath as relatives or family during your period, it's just too much.
85AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:59
Re: #56
Some spa-sentō places do have reservable baths or family baths, but I've never heard of one that comes standard with private shower stalls.
57AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:46
If you just declare that people with tattoos have no human rights, then technically it's not a "denial."
65AnonymousNov 1, 2026 01:48
Re: #57
Works for me.
96AnonymousNov 1, 2026 02:02
Keeping out the weirdos with pictures drawn on their bodies means more regular customers without "art" show up at super sentō and pools, which means more profit. These places aren't run as charities or public services, so of course they're going to pick customers to maximize profit.
112AnonymousNov 1, 2026 02:12
Re: #96
Public baths get tax funding as public infrastructure though, so that argument doesn't really hold up either.
Background and key points of this debate
Turning away tattooed customers at public baths isn’t a blanket legal ban — it’s usually a house rule each facility sets on its own. As several posters in the thread point out, the practice spread largely out of practical need to exclude yakuza members, and there are multiple reported cases of hot springs and saunas that lifted their tattoo bans only to reverse course within a month or a few months after repeated trouble with customers. Asō’s claim of “human rights denial” drew pushback in the thread — “try running the business yourself before you say that” — precisely because it overlooks these real management decisions and the history of incidents behind them. At the same time, the conversation drifted from the core tattoo debate toward a separate claim: that the real human rights issue is the lack of private shower stalls at public baths. Readers should be careful not to flatten this into a simple “ban equals discrimination” narrative — in practice, there’s a concrete history of nuisance incidents and a business’s right to select its customers behind these policies.
Leave a Reply