Introducing Crow/Raven (Yatagarasu) Tattoo Designs and Meanings!

This is a crow tattoo in a brush style that looks as if it was painted with ink.

It is a great design that captures the crow’s sense of movement.

This is a one-point crow tattoo.

Even though it is a one-point tattoo, drawing it together with a tree branch for the crow to perch on creates a beautiful design.

This is a Yatagarasu tattoo drawn in a tribal pattern, which is popular in tattoos.

The Japan Football Association logo also features a Yatagarasu and soccer ball design, so this can be considered an homage to that.

The crow and skull motif is a design born not from the positive Japanese image of crows, but from the negative Western image of crows.

In Western mythology, crows were seen as gods that bring slaughter, and their image as birds that feed on the dead helped create the crow as a symbol of death.

This is a design combining a crow flying with its wings spread and a compass.

Yatagarasu carries the meaning of guidance, and combining it with a compass emphasizes that meaning even more.

This is a design featuring a crow’s head on the neck.

It is all black, but the texture of the crow’s feathers is well expressed, making it a nice design.

This is a tattoo design featuring the moon and a crow perched on a branch.

The melancholy drifting from the crow illuminated by moonlight is indescribable.

This is a design example featuring cherry blossoms and a crow.

It is drawn in an ink-painting-like style, and the contrast between the red cherry blossoms and the black branches and crow makes it a very beautiful design.

By the way, cherry blossoms have flower meanings such as “beauty of spirit,” “purity,” and “graceful woman.”

In the Western view, crows can carry an association with death.

So when someone important passes away, having it tattooed together with lettering such as a date, like in this design example, can express mourning for that person.

This is a design example featuring Yatagarasu and Emperor Jimmu, whom Yatagarasu is said to have guided.

To keep the Yatagarasu from blending into the forehead/background, this design depicts the usually black Yatagarasu in white.

This is a crow tattoo drawn across the full chest area.

Many overseas fighters and others also have large animal-motif tattoos across the chest, so it can be called a classic placement.

In American Traditional tattooing, crows are basically not a commonly used motif, but in this design example they are depicted beautifully.

If you already have many tattoos in the American Traditional style, it may be good to keep them in the same style family.

This is a wabori-inspired Yatagarasu drawn across the entire back.

If a background is added, the black Yatagarasu can get lost in it, so it is often done in negative-space style.

This is a crow tattoo drawn in a pop-style design.

Just as crows are used in picture books, making them illustration-style makes them very cute.

This is a tattoo design on the arm combining a crow and a skull.

The crow-and-skull combination is common, but a merged design like this is rare.

This is a one-point Yatagarasu tattoo.

Its distinctive feature is the unique way the feathers are expressed.

This is a crow design surrounded by flowers and plants such as chrysanthemums.

Crows tend to be expressed in black and gray, but adding color to the flowers may also look great.