The tattooed outlaw at rest. Shi Jin was born into a wealthy family, trained in martial arts as a gentleman's pursuit, but everything changed when he got those tattoos - nine dragons coiling across his body, marking him as something other than respectable. In a society where only criminals and outcasts marked their skin, those dragons made him unemployable, unmarriageable, outcast. So he became what everyone assumed he was - masterless, dangerous, and eventually the first hero recruited into the Liangshan brotherhood.

Kuniyoshi captures him in a rare moment of calm - seated on a vanquished foe, chest and right arm bare to display those famous dragon tattoos winding across his skin. He holds his drawn sword casually, the fight already over. His elaborate robes in blues, reds, and golds cascade around him, his expression proud and composed. Behind him, a burning temple - the Gwaranji - marks the chaos of pursuit, but Shi Jin sits unmoved, the center of stillness in someone else's disaster. This is the confidence of a man who knows exactly what he's capable of.

This is from Kuniyoshi's legendary 1827 Suikoden series. Here he shows Shi Jin not in the heat of battle, but after - victorious, displayed, those nine dragons visible for everyone to see. The tattoos that made him an outlaw became his signature, his legend, his identity.

This is Shi Jin (史進), the "Nine Tattooed Dragons" (九紋龍); known in Japan as Kyūmonryū Shishin (九紋龍史進), from the series Tsūzoku suikoden gōketsu hiyakuhachinin no hitori (通俗水滸伝豪傑百八人之一個, One of the 108 famous Suikoden heroes) 1827.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳, 1798-1861)