work visa sponsorship from a manga publishing house

[Kaibutsu]

I'd one day like to get a job as a manga artist in Japan. Problem is, I don't have a college degree. If I sent good enough samples to be hired by one of the big publishing houses(Kodansha,Shogakukan, and Shueisha), could I get them to give me sponsorship for a work visa?

[oyajikun]

You cannot get a work visa in Japan witout a college degree.

[Kaibutsu]

You cannot get a work visa in Japan witout a college degree.

Would I be able to get one with an Illustration degree? Would it have to be a Bachelor of Arts of a full fledged Master's Degree?

[oyajikun]

I could be mistaken but I believe the minimum requirement is a Bachelor's degree. Check with the Embassy.

[Greener]

I spoke to the Japanese embassy in Canada and they said that if you have 10 years experience and/or a combination of 10 years of education/certifications/work experience, you can still get a work visa in Japan without a degree.

[AssKissinger]

I'd one day like to get a job as a manga artist in Japan.

The competition is gonna be stiffer than my candle. How old are you anyway?

[Kaibutsu]

I'd one day like to get a job as a manga artist in Japan.

The competition is gonna be stiffer than my candle. How old are you anyway?

I'm 38. I'm not getting any younger so I'd like to at least take a shot at it.
Even if I failed, I can always say I tried.

One thing I'm wondering though: Even with the college degree needed for a work visa, Japanese language ability and unearthly artistic skills, is being a gaijin going to make it a lot harder for me than it would be for a native?

[Steve Bildermann]

is being a gaijin going to make it a lot harder for me than it would be for a native?

[Kaibutsu]

I spoke to the Japanese embassy in Canada and they said that if you have 10 years experience and/or a combination of 10 years of education/certifications/work experience, you can still get a work visa in Japan without a degree.

Thanks for checking around for me. Unfortunantley I'm American so that may not apply to me. I'll have to visit one of the Embassies down here to find out what applies to the US. Thanks again for looking into it.

[Kaibutsu]

is being a gaijin going to make it a lot harder for me than it would be for a native?

Asked a stupid question didn't I Steve -san? Seriously, how tough would it be? Would I have a tough time getting my foot in the door even if I could draw manga that'd make Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away) turn green with envy?

[AssKissinger]

Post some of your work.

[Kaibutsu]

Post some of your work.

Here it is, I still need a shitload of practice. The first one was done about 2001 if I remember correctly.




This one was done circa 1999 I think.



This one is around 2001.



This one was done about early 2004.

[AssKissinger]

A lot of junior high kids can draw that well.

[Ptyx]

From time to time manga companies are looking fro westerner authors or artists. It's the old "sales are going down we have to renew our industry". They did it about ten years ago, they went to europe and hired some independant comic artists (Lewis Trondheim was one of them).
Some months later they were all fired or stopped because the working conditions were horrible(and they were sending stuff from europe they didn't even move to japan).
The editors treated them like shit, editing their work behind their back. They finally all called it a quit and some of them re-released their work in europe, the unedited version that is.

I'm far from a specialist as much as manga is concern, but the lesson i get from this is that the big manga publishing companies don't need gaijins to do japanese manga.
Theres's a shitload of talented japanese kids ready to do it for next to nothing without all the gaijin hassles(doesn't speak, read or write japanese, care about the integrity of his art and so on..)
On the other hand they need people to bring a different style to their industry, they have to try new stuff, and the best way to do it is to call gaijin authors and artists.
It's one of the cultural (or entertainement) business rule: Renewal.

Hollywood basically works the same way, from time to time they give a big budget movie to a foreign filmaker to see what he's gonna do with it,for example John Woo(Face off, Mi:2), Alejandro Amenabar(The Others) or Jean-Pierre Jeunet(Alien 4).

So if you want to work in the manga industry you should propose something different from traditional japanese manga but at the same time close to their market enough not to scare them away.
they probably won't hire Chris Ware, Dan Clowes or Tony Millionaire but they might think about getting Frank Miller, or Jeff Smith

A recent example, Ashley Wood, the hottest shit to hit comics industry since Bill Sienkewicz was approached recently by Konami to design the characters of their latest Contra game. Probably because they wanted their customers to think "wow this is really a new contra game".
It's a bit simplified but i'll hope you'll get the point.
Anyway my two cents.
For a cheerful take on the subject read "Even a monkey can draw manga"

[cstaylor]

I'd one day like to get a job as a manga artist in Japan. Problem is, I don't have a college degree. If I sent good enough samples to be hired by one of the big publishing houses(Kodansha,Shogakukan, and Shueisha), could I get them to give me sponsorship for a work visa?

Have you ever visited Japan? Might want to try that first before committing to a work situation.

[Kaibutsu]

I'm far from a specialist as much as manga is concern, but the lesson i get from this is that the big manga publishing companies don't need gaijins to do japanese manga.

Theres's a shitload of talented japanese kids ready to do it for next to nothing without all the gaijin hassles(doesn't speak, read or write japanese, care about the integrity of his art and so on.).

That about sums it up.

It's highly unlikely that you'll get work without having an established career in the US. And the fact is, if you really want to draw manga, you can probably do it more comfortably in better working conditions and for better pay in the US.

And specifically regarding visa sponsorship, I'm not exactly sure how the industry works, but I would guess most artists are freelance contractors rather than true "employees" of the publishing companies. If I'm right, that would mean it will be even tougher and more hassle to go through the visa process.

Thanks for the feedback Ultra, Ptyx, and Cs. I'm still not sure if I'm ready to go for it, but at least now I know the odds I'm up against. I'm thinking for now I'll try to work on my art a lot more and possibly go back to college.

Thanks again

Alan

[Charles]

A lot of junior high kids can draw that well.

Or better. Much better. Quick tip: eyes must be placed symmetrically aside the nose, they cannot be at different heights. The brain first focuses on the eyes when it sees a face, the slightest deviation from symmetry is more noticable near the eyes than anywhere else. This is the kind of thing you learn in Art School in Drawing 101, even if you want to do stylized anime drawings you need to know the basics of anatomy first. I (mostly) fixed one of your drawings, my version is on the right.



But more to the point... I spent many years in LA working around the film & video industry, and it's the model for film industry worldwide. And the basic fact I learned is, you will never get a job in the industry by knocking on doors and showing your portfolio. All jobs are given to people they know personally, it is 100% cronyism. So unless you personally know someone who wants to give you a job, you can completely forget the whole idea. In other words, "dont call us, we'll call you."

Even if you have amazing skills in specialized animation technology, it is incredibly tough to break into the industry. For example, I worked my way through the top end of print & prepress, so now I've been studying computer animation in Maya for a few years, I have enough contacts in video productions to get a good start, if I choose to go that way. But I just picked up an animation magazine, and read a huge editorial about how the entire Maya industry is being outsourced to Korea and India, just like the rest of the IT industry. So there's always room at the top for the $200k/yr animation experts, but the entry level has been almost completely eliminated. This is a stark contrast to a few years back, when it was almost impossible to find entry level Maya operators, and if you could keep up with a steep learning curve, you could be a lead operator within a year.

[Charles]

That's depressing. Will there be anything left for people just starting out in CG production (who aren't in India or Korea)? If all the work goes overseas there won't be anyone left in the US to buy the crap they produce...

Yep, it's depressing alright. Unfortunately, outsourcing animation is bound to fail. It's a variant of the old "mythical Man-month" problem, film is an art, and there is a limited supply of real artists, you cannot make art more rapidly by hiring more people to produce it. That would actually slow things down.

I've been telling people for years, it is easier to take a talented artist and teach them computer skills than to take a computer geek and teach them artistic skills. The number of skilled artists is always small, it is the rarest talent on earth, and the most difficult career path of all. But computer geeks are a dime a dozen.

But the biggest problem is the anime audience. They'll pay good money for rubbish.. and it's ALL rubbish. But it's exotic foreigh rubbish that makes the buyer feel special because he's into something exotic, it's the worst form of Orientalism. So they don't care they're buying pure crap, and the producers consequently don't care they're producing pure crap. They're laughing at their audience, all the way to the bank.

Lately some of the uber-hipsters have been trying to push Bollywood crap as the latest exotic film scene. It's fallen absolutely flat on its face, IMHO it's because these Indian products have no pretensions to be anything other than pure crap. Pouring more money into their productions isn't going to make them anything more than expensive crap.

Anyway, here's what we have to look forward to:

http://funny.ansme.com/videos/singhsons.html

[Charles]

There's definitely a strong tendency for Hollywood to flit around to various countries to milk whatever foreign fad they can grab onto rather than cultivating new homegrown talent. Unfortunately, that usually means the few outstanding works from those countries are cheapened and lost in the flood of garbage, in addition to thinning the pool of experienced domestic talent.

You ain't seen nothing yet.

http://absolut.com/mulit

Click through and watch the movie. This is precisely the sort of rubbish that the uber-hipsters (on certain popular sites that shall go unnamed) are trying to push. I wonder how much money they got under the table to link to this crap. They think it's ultracool culture jamming, I think it's racist exploitation.

[zucchini]

By the way - The Singhsons was created by a Canadian Co for a UK based comedy writer & performer.

"Bollywood" as the latest fad ? - probably, hopefully films like "Bride & Prejudice" have finally nailed it and we can get to see some more interesting stuff.

The fad for imitating Manga seems to be more of a US phenomenon than here in the UK, though I've been a fan for a while - probably because shows like Star Blazer were never aired here, and were thought to be a corrupting influence - plus jingoism, I suspect.

The fact is drawing skills across the board are better in Japan , even though its all of a homogeneous type.

[Charles]

The fact is drawing skills across the board are better in Japan , even though its all of a homogeneous type.

I have worked with a lot of exchange students from Japan at my art school, I assure you, you are mistaken. There seems to be a myth about Japanese art skills, I heard one professor say "ALL Japanese are talented at drawing, since they grow up drawing kanji." Horseshit. None of the Japanese students I knew could draw worth a damn.

[Pencilslave]

I have worked with a lot of exchange students from Japan at my art school, I assure you, you are mistaken. There seems to be a myth about Japanese art skills, I heard one professor say "ALL Japanese are talented at drawing, since they grow up drawing kanji." Horseshit. None of the Japanese students I knew could draw worth a damn.[/quote]

Since my drawing skills are still crappy, it's a comforting thought to know that it's a myth that all Japanese can draw well because they write Kanji and Kana. Strangely enough, I can draw better than I can write or print.

I've just about given up on the idea of drawing manga for a Japanese company, after finding out how hard it would be for a gaijin to make it in the field, and the fact that Manga artists don't earn shit for wages.(I think it was 12,000-15,000 a year, or roughly 230-290 bucks a week.)

I think I'm still going to try to learn how to draw this crap for my own amusement, and maybe after I've visited Japan a couple of times, try to sell a few doujinshi at Comiket.

[bejiita]

Better yet, start making your contacts stateside:

http://www.viz.com/about/jobs/editorial/fcba.php

Not the most glamarous of jobs but at least you'll be able to network.

[zucchini]

Perhaps you're right re Japanese drawings skills, let's say its adequate for the Manga style since that's how they all seem to draw - which is not the same as drawing well - if we are talking in animation terms.

Is drawing well even a pre-requisite for animation ? - the answer is no since animation isn't necessarily about drawing well - its about timing & understanding motion.

Even Disney broke down his characters into a form which would be accessible to people who had broadly differing skills in drawing - anyone can draw an oval or straight line - in order to serve the production line process that commercial animation demands.

You can't deny that when it comes to "realistic" characters, the Japanese have it sorted, even when it's to a certain level of stylisation.

[Cortana]

Hrm... given what site I manage for no living, I guess I should comment on this. =)

The manga industry in Japan is very VERY choosy at who gets their foot in the door. To be honest, your art samples are not even close to what you need to even get looked at.

Not only do you need quality, but you need speed as well. Can you do 12-16 pages a week, every week? or 30 a month?

The artist of megatokyo, Fred Gallagher, is (at least in my opinion) pretty talented, as well as my friend.. that's why I manage his servers in my spare time. Still, we joke from time to time that even he couldn't step into the Japanese (or even american) manga industry... he's just not fast enough, and not confident enough in his art to do it now. Still, he usually manages to get 3 pages a week out, and that's where it stands now. He could probably manage a monthly with some assistants.

Keep drawing, work on your art. Take some classes. You're not too old to get better. Animation in Japan these days is almost completely the domain of digital tools. Drawing is almost falling to a point where the best artists do keyframes and animators / inbetweeners build frames from them to fill in the spaces between, and digital painters make the pretty colors go. 3D stuff is taking off more and more every season. The only way not to know if you CAN do it is not to try </inspiring noise>

[GuyJean]

Off topic: (Charles, you stole my avatar idea!).. Cool.

GJ

[Pencilslave]

Sorry to bump this after all this time, but this doesn't exactly relate to Japan. At age 38 I'm thinking of going back to college. I still want to get a B.A or B.FA in art studio but, I realize that there's gonna be a crapload of competition out there for jobs in fields like graphic design, computer graphics, etc.

Is it possible to survive as a graphic artist here in the states?

Also, any suggestions on other majors are welcome.

Thanks