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uMy sincere apologies if you don't feel it fitting.v
To add to what AK touched on with the cultural context of tattoos, and linguistic iconography in general in Japan, I have the impression that the using a word that, by itself, indicates a person as a show of one's values/personality is less common in Japan than in English-speaking countries.
For example, in the U.S. it's not uncommon to see tattoos, accessories, T-shirts, etc. that say things like "Angel," "Princess," "Survivor," "Winner." The intent is to say that the person embodies the characteristics associated with those: I am pure/regal/strong/successful.
On the other hand, it's rare to see such linguistic iconography in Japan. Aside from a general tendency towards modesty in Japanese, I think linguistically such person-designating terms are taken more at their basic, literal meaning when used as iconography. So, for example, if I see someone with a tattoo that says "Winner" in English, it feels like the person is saying "I am successful at many things in life, because I am a driven and determined person." But if I saw someone with a tattoo of "winner" written in Japanese, Ÿ—˜ŽÒ, my reaction would be "Oh, I guess this person won some sort of contest or sports game."
So along those same lines, if I saw someone with a tattoo of "survivor" written in Japanese, my immediate interpretation wouldn't be "this person has a lot of perseverance" so much as just "this person was in some kind of accident." In Japanese, my mind would go less to the struggle and strength found in the recovery, and more to just the fact that they didn't die from some dangerous situation they were in.
On the other hand, I have the impression that in Japanese linguistic iconography words that indicate the value concepts themselves are more common. For Japanese calligraphy, for example, you're more likely to find artists writing "victory" than "winner," or "perseverance" than "survivor."
So it's not so much that a tattoo of "survivor" written in Japanese would be inappropriate, but rather that it's probably not going to give the impression that you initially imagined it would to Japanese people. Basically, the people who see it will most likely fall into one of two groups:
1. People who can read Japanese, understand what the tattoo says, and think it's a strange choice.
2. People who can't read Japanese, will need you to explain to them what the tattoo says, and even after the explanation, will probably interpret it differently than people who actually can read Japanese would.
Ultimately, it's your body, and you're free to do whatever you like in terms of tattoos - no one in Japan is going to be offended or confront you about it, even if they think it looks strange. If your desire to get the tattoo in Japanese specifically is mainly because you think the language looks cool, that's ultimately a personal decision, but if Japanese cultural significance is also a part of why you want the tattoo, you might want to give it some more thought before going through with it.
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