Japanese style flash design of a grey hannya demon mask and a red and white kabuki mask, framed by cherry blossoms and clouds.

Hannya and kabuki masks with cherry blossom

Japanese · Mixed · Flash

A full colour drawing of a grey hannya demon mask in the lower half and a red and white kabuki mask above it, both encircled by red cherry blossom flowers, purple cords and stylised clouds. The linework is bold and black with white highlights, and the shading on the masks and clouds is grey wash. A gold tablet with a black calligraphic mark sits separately at the lower right on a plain white background.

Japanese Cherry blossom Cloud Demon Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomi,

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The company reached Hirosaki on the third day of rain, and the castle keep is nothing now but a stone base and a pine growing out of the moat wall. They set the stage for the ghost play in the old bailey, under a roof of tarpaulin. I have been prompting from a crate since dawn, because Master Kanzaburo says the hannya must be seen by the lamp before it is seen by the crowd.

The mask came to us in a cedar box with a gold tablet tied to the lid. The tablet bears the carver's mark and a note in his hand: the horns were cut from a cow that died in spring, and the cords were dyed with the same purple as the plum silk at the gate. Nobody told me what the tablet was for. I think it was a promise that the mask would go back into the box when the performance was done.

Last night the old actor who had worn the red-and-white face for thirty years sat by the wall and watched the blossom come down off the cherry in the outer ward. He did not speak. He only lifted one petal from his sleeve and laid it on the grey mask's brow, as though the demon needed something pretty to look at.

I will bring the box home at the spring fair, and I will leave the tablet with the carver's widow in Kyoto. Tell Mother the cords are the colour she likes, and that I am well.

Your brother, Hideo