Before you start applying there will be a few minimum requirements.

Learn The Lingo

This is fairly obviously the number one stumbling block for most people and also the most important aspect of your move to get right. A simple rule to live by is “NO Japanese people speak English!” This is not entirely correct, but near enough to make it workable. During the application processes, during the interview and at work Japanese will be the language used. There are a handful of companies that have English speaking employees or that will hire an interpreter for the initial stages of negotiations, there are even companies that will pay for your Japanese study, but these are extremely rare and relying on them will severely limit your options.

Don’t rely on self-study, a Japanese spouse or osmosis to learn the language. It absolutely requires the minimum effort of a language course. Of course, once you’re in Japan and you’re surrounded by people speaking Japanese you’ll find your skills increase tremendously, but for the initial steps you’ll need some study. The level of Japanese required differs for each position you could be hired for, but a bare minimum would be “conversational”. In a future article I’ll go more in-depth on this, but you should at the very least be semi-competent in daily conversation.

The good news is, though, that despite the dire warnings from certain people, not least the Japanese themselves, Japanese is not impossible to learn. In fact, grammatically it is surprisingly simple and straightforward. Sure, you’ll need to start your vocabulary from scratch and wrap your mind around certain constructs but as so much meaning relies on context and the Japanese love rules you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how quickly you’ll pick it up if you really try.

The real heartache comes, of course, from the infamous kanji, one of the four scripts used in Japanese, this one using thousands of intricate pictograms that not only have different meanings depending on context but also different readings depending on how they’re used. The first one hundred of them are deceptively easy to remember but soon you’ll be staring at a mess of lines with your head in your hands.

The Japanese themselves are slowly forgetting their kanji, studied from age 6 onwards, as computers take over most of the difficult tasks when writing them. Kanji will be the bane of your life for the duration of your stay in Japan. But kanji is not required to be able to speak and learn Japanese, however I do recommend starting hitting those books as soon as you can; it’s a long road.

Visa Eligibility

Despite the enormous Gray Pension Bomb that hangs over Japan’s immediate future like an uninvited elephant at a cocktail party that everybody is politely trying to ignore, Japan can be a little strict in who it lets into its homogenous country. There are a variety of Visas available for different jobs and qualifications and I recommend reading up on it on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan’s website.

Most likely you’ll come in on a 1 year specialist’s Visa. For this you require a degree, so if you’re a student thinking of moving to Japan at some point it will be worth your while sticking it out until graduation. And try not to get a criminal record – that can put a damper on things.

Organising a Visa can be a bit of a pain and is usually in the hands of your employer. Not many game developers have experience with this or want to avoid all the hassle by adding “must have valid Visa” on their recruit pages. Of course, if they really want to hire you you’ll find them helpful and receptive, but you’ll increase your chances of landing your first job if your potential employer doesn’t have this particular bit of red tape to worry about.