Same with the end of "Black Rain".

Japan is a damn expensive place to bring an American sized production crew to for several months at a time.

"Lost in Translation" was filmed totally in Japan, but with a very small crew.

Completing my degree in the next year...
 

I'm glad I stumbled upon this thread this morning. I've flipped through the meat of it and what MMM says rings true.

My Question is this. While finding a job teaching English to support a new life in Japan would likely be the easiest way to go about it... What about finding a job relative to my degree earned? Next to Business I think that my degree in IT and Computer Programming Could still be a skill used. I mean, I may not be fluent in Japanese but no matter that language barrier, programming languages are the same worldwide.

While I'd be willing to work as an English teacher to support myself, how realistic is it to find a job pertaining to my degree while I'm in Japan?

Thanks in advance to any replies :)

Hello:) I am in the IT field myself, I had no luck, but others on the forum suggested that IT work are everywhere, so I will go by what other suggested and say that yes you do have a shot at it

One thing though, I think, you do need to know Japanese, or fluent enough to communicate, lets not look at the job requirement (most posting will say how much Japanese is needed, and so far, everything IT I've seen need you to be fluent), but to look at the job itself, as a programmer or software engineer, you need to be able to communicate with others to learn of the requirement, defects, expectation and such, so I would strongly recommend beefing up your Japanese, especially in that technical world as you probably know that we have a complete different culture in the technical language in English, and its likely that they also have the same in Japanese

Another thought.
 

While I've taken four years of Japanese... that was back in highschool and I can barely read more than hiragana and katakana and a handful of useful kanji.

Do any of these English Teaching companies make it easy to find courses in Japanese that I could take? While getting to Japan is my goal for now, Once I get there I want to become as fluent as I can. And that will require courses in the language as well as culture and history.

I think you should be good enough to meet what they need then, my comment was only towards beginner who has no Japanese background at all, but what you've got should be good enough, so I would just start looking for an IT job if I were you, and practice on the job and learn from there

Some might, but for the larger companies it isn't really in their best interest for you to become fluent in Japanese, as then you might be able to look for a better job. Opportunities are there, though.

I can see what you're saying. But finding myself with a larger company should give me room to grow inside that company. I would think a smaller company would be more concerned with ways to keep me from leaving.

There is no room to grow inside the company. At the larger companies the glass ceiling is pretty darn low. Foreigners are teachers only and the sheer volume of applicants means they can keep you on a pretty short leash.

I probably wouldn't take a job teaching at a company when I could do the same going with JET or some other organization. The idea of me finding a job for a real company would be for me to work on software development and improve my marketable skills, aside from Japanese fluency.

One of the drawbacks in planning my trip to Japan means I have to put my professional future on hold while I'm away. However, this is a measure of how much I want to go and learn Japanese. Who wouldn't want to do both? :)

Is 4 years College batchlor degree?
So far all my schools have been privat school, and University of Teesside is next stop. Will this count even if it is private?