HOWEVER... My group of friends went to Tokyo Disney this past October. While many in the group have at least one tattoo, one of them has a good amount and he was wearing a t-shirt. Everyone was held up at the front gates for over half an hour while the park employees were deciding if they'd allow him inside the park with his tattoos visible.
He has nothing vulgar or anything, so that wasn't the problem at all. In Japan tattoos are still seen as a connection with the Yakuza and aren't nearly as culturally acceptable as they are in many other countries. The friend who was almost turned away ended up wearing a hoodie for the rest of the days at the park.
One of the people in our group lives and works in Japan and has been turned away from the public bath houses when on business trips because of a small tattoo on his back.
This is just a guess, but in Japan full sleeves and the like are often associated with the Yakuza. Granted, if the guy wasn't Japanese then it would be silly to think he was a member, but tattoos do carry a different sort of meaning over there.
Yah, my brother (we are Taiwanese American, grew up in jersey) went to Japan and ppl stared at him the entire time. He has tattoos on his back and arms.
Never mind that hr went to Georgetown law, graduated top 10%, worked at skadden and Latham, and is now a GC of a publicly traded international money management company.
In Japan, he's definitely Yakuza in everyone's mind. Japan was a stopover to Taiwan to visit our ailing grandmother before she passed. It was my brothers first trip to Asia since he was 5 years old.