That's actually really interesting that English is required to work for those companies. Is that a common thing in Japan for every industry? Or are they trying to attract western developers to the Japanese games industry?
In R&D English is important for 2 reasons.
#1: You will be sent to America for conferences and shows such as SIGGRAPH, GDC, etc. Even CEDEC is 50% English, although it is a Japanese event.
#2: Research papers are virtually always in English.
Any company with an R&D division will be looking for English speakers.
Other companies seek English largely based on how traditional the workplace is.
Don’t bother at Nintendo or Grasshopper Manufacture—instead focus on newer companies, especially those with English sites.
One example off the top of my head is Akatsuki (yes, the villain group from Naruto—it means “dawn”): http://en.aktsk.jp/
99% of all Japanese companies will only list recruitment information on their Japanese pages: http://aktsk.jp/
Hard to find the recruitment page? Hover over each link along the top and bottom and check the lower-left area of your browser to see where it links. There will be a button linking to /recruit or /careers.
DeNA would be another that springs to mind. Silicon Studios is a maybe (I’ve been told and I experienced that they are constantly just testing the waters and never actually hire).
With basic Japanese and Google you can easily find a list of Japanese game companies. I won’t send a link directly since that is really the least amount of effort you can put forth if you want to live in Japan. Another good search you would want to do is for Japanese recruitment agencies. They know tons of companies that I don’t and have inside knowledge on which require Japanese and which don’t.
L. Spiro
