I’ve always enjoyed JRPGs, especially seeing character concept art and world development. I’m very interested in working on the part of creating character designs and one day creating my own JRPG. How does the entry of foreigners in this work area work?
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**Does a foreigner have a chance to work in the field of concept art in Japan?**
I’ve always enjoyed JRPGs, especially seeing character concept art and world development. I’m very interested in working on the part of creating character designs and one day creating my own JRPG. How does the entry of foreigners in this work area work?
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Suggest you look at job postings at the various JRPG makers, e.g. Square-Enix: https://hrmos.co/pages/square-enix/jobs/110101001 (edit: fixed, I hope!)
I always recommend people look at job postings and see whether they think they’re in an appropriate position to go for it.
Note that positions like these don’t seem to be posted on the Engliah-language sections of recruitment sites; you can expect to have to be able to give and take a lot of direction in Japanese. Your portfolio could be killer as all hell but if you can’t effectively communicate with the director to bring their vision to life, that will be a major concern.
companies would probably prefer japanese artists because the language barrier and a lot of stuff is done remotely through contracts so its not like you would need to live in japan to work with a company even if you manage to get contracted. basically if you are good and relatively well known on social media, companies will reach out to you. also the income in japan is low rn so if you have the skills, it would probably be better financially to work for a US company.
I know someone working in games but they’re from Taiwan (knows all the kanji), graduated from a specialarts and technology school in the US, and they have like JLPT 1 certification so unless you’re so good that it would somehow negate not being native level in Japanese proficiency, you’re probably looking at a tough road ahead.
Quickest way to end up hating something you enjoy is to try turn it into a career.
Yes. I know a few different foreigners who work as artists in video games, from concept to characters.
Yes, if you have a stunning portfolio a lot of places are open to hiring foreigners.
You also might need a degree for visa purposes, some of my colleagues who went to Japan as artists needed a whole ten years of work history in their home country documented too for their visa when they didn’t have a degree.
Roberto Ferrari did it. If you’re as good as or better than him maybe you can too?
Being a foreigner is not the problem. Not knowing the language and culture is.