So I made it to the interview stage! Yay!
There’s one thing I’m worried about though. I know it’s not good to say “I like anime” and I have no intention of saying that specifically, however what I DO like is animation, and I have a degree in character design and background in the industry. I mention this very briefly in my SOP (mentioned possibly wanting to teach art later/my plan for when I come home) and of course my application has my education and work experience. They can see that I like art obviously and they can probably assume that yes I draw cartoons for a living. If it came up in the interview, I wanted to talk about how my background can help me build rapport with Japanese students because we will have the common ground of both enjoying content made for children, i.e. cartoons (or manga or anime) and it gives me an opportunity to teach Japanese children about the industry in the west and introduce them to some new shows where they can both practice English by watching and learn something about western culture (I’m from Canada and I would be more specific about that if asked, but I’m generalizing to west here for simplicity sake and because the industry itself can be simplified in that way)
They might not want to talk to me about it at all, and they might grill me on what I plan to offer/how my background will help offer something. Either way, I don’t want to look childish to the Japanese interviewer just because I enjoy creating and teaching about child friendly content. Does anyone think I should worry about looking childish and what I might do to not come off that way?
Sorry this post wound up longer than I thought! 😅
3 comments
Didnt we have this literal exact post verbatim about 2 hours ago
You are overthinking this waaaaay too much, and the over thinking might be the thing to damage your interview, as this tends to make ppl nervous. I use my art background on this job quite often actually. I make stuff for my English board, assignments, activities and help the JHS art club. I’m even making an award for a JHS student. This is all because I showed my coworkers my drawings, and they see I can do both fine art and digital (I’m the only one in the building with Adobe). So having a background in art can definitely be utilized on this job.
Edit: Why would the interviewer think you’re childish??? Japan has animators, character designers, and all that. Not only that, but you’re applying for a job dealing with children. If anything it may show you can appeal to them.
This is something that’ll constantly get debated. It’s been a popular speculation of what interviewers red flag, but it’s never been officially confirmed as a standard across the board.
So here’s my interview story.
I worked with an anime company.
Anime got mentioned and discussed in my interview.
It wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t make it a big deal. They even mentioned that anime is part of Japan’s soft power. I agreed, but nothing more. That’s it.
I still got in.
Just don’t obsess or set an expectation that Japan life = anime.