The Attendants of Fudo Myo-o

I am very happy to report that my 126th and 127th appointments with Horizakura involved extending my right half sleeve to match my left full sleeve. I have been anticipating these appointments for quite some time. Patience is paramount in this process (I’d like to see you whippersnappers find alliteration that good on Twitter!). While I have always endeavored to stay patient and recognize that all progress is progress towards the final goal, having one half sleeve and one full sleeve has been driving me nuts for over a year. I’m really happy to have almost my entire right sleeve outlined as of this writing.

I would love to feign intent and tell you that this combo post was dictated by the content of the tattoo, but that would be a straight up lie. I continue to be quite lazy when it comes to these updates. Horizakura and I are meeting for tattoo appointments at a record pace and part of the reason for this blog was to fill in the times when I’m not getting tattooed. Well now 99% of the time I’m not getting tattooed is occupied by a toddler. Between the breakneck pace of the tattooing and the breakneck speed of my son heading towards some unforeseen danger, this blog has started to slip a little. Fortunately, I have been pretty good about remembering to take pictures at regular intervals so the integrity of the progress photos is mostly intact.

As far as that little lie about intent I mentioned above, well the content of my right forearm is designed to tie-in with my Fudo Myo-o sleeve in a pretty direct way. Fudo is very often depicted with two attendants (I think there are 8 total attendants, but two are more commonly placed with Fudo than any of the others) named Seitaka Doji and Kongara Doji. Horizakura has tattooed their respective bonji on my right forearm and surrounded them with fire, water, and rocks to match my left sleeve. Kongara’s bonji was tattooed at 126 and we just did Seitaka’s last night during appointment 127. Each session was two hours of drawing and tattooing. Because of the interconnectedness of the content, I do think that my laziness worked in my favor for this particular post. It’s easier to understand the concept of the pairing with both bonji present. Interestingly, the right side of my body now contains four total bonji, but I do feel that the way these two are implemented makes them stand out as more of a thematic element of the tattoo. By contrast, the other two bonji I have are for family members and they are both far more understated in their execution. I mentioned this to Horizakura while we were discussing options for my forearm and he was not at all concerned with adding more bonji to the mix. Well if it’s fine with him, then it’s fine with me!

Finally, you will notice that there is only a small area left to tattoo under my right elbow ditch. This indicates to me that we will have finished the entire outline by the end of my next appointment. Have I mentioned that I’m excited?