Ever since my freshman year, I’ve been dead-set on studying film for college. There are many great options for this field of study in the US, but studying in Japan sounds much more appealing, especially because many of my friends already live there or are going there for university.
For additional information, I am half and grew up speaking Japanese, so though I am culturally native, I don’t think my reading/writing is at university level, so I would be studying at a university that teaches English courses primarily.
With that said, if I am going to study film, would the US or Japan be a better option? If so, what schools in Japan should I look into.
3 comments
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
—
**Senior in high school and weighing my options**
Ever since my freshman year, I’ve been dead-set on studying film for college. There are many great options for this field of study in the US, but studying in Japan sounds much more appealing, especially because many of my friends already live there or are going there for university.
For additional information, I am half and grew up speaking Japanese, so though I am culturally native, I don’t think my reading/writing is at university level, so I would be studying at a university that teaches English courses primarily.
With that said, if I am going to study film, would the US or Japan be a better option? If so, what schools in Japan should I look into.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/movingtojapan) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Leading this off with my qualifications: I have worked in/adjacent to the Japanese film industry for almost a decade now.
>With that said, if I am going to study film, would the US or Japan be a better option?
The US, *hands down*.
There are so many more options for film schools in the US, ranging from the trade-school types like Full Sail up to the prestigious schools like USC. There honestly aren’t really *any* high-level film schools in Japan.
The most important question is one that you didn’t ask/address: Do you want to work in the US industry or the Japanese industry? If you want to work in the US, go to school in the US. If you want to work in Japan, go to school in Japan.
The name of the game in film is ***contacts***. People you meet in school will be the number one source of work for you in the future, so it makes *zero* sense to go to school in a country you’re not going to be working in.
>I don’t think my reading/writing is at university level, so I would be studying at a university that teaches English courses primarily.
English-taught film programs in Japan don’t exist. Even if they did they would be useless to you, because again: Contacts.
If you want to go to film school in Japan and/or work in Japan your first priority needs to be getting your Japanese up to snuff. The fact that you can speak natively (or near-natively) means that this is actually possible, unlike most of the film industry hopefuls we get here, but you’re going to need to put in some brain sweat nonetheless.
Anything that has to do with education and experience, always is going to be better in the US.
If u are from Europe (west) or the US, there is no other reason for you to choose Japan over your home country but changing your environment and experience a quite different culture.
Now, you choose wherever you want to live and what you want to extract from life depending on your goals.