Hail, T-Ono Denizens. I've recently graduated a State college with a degree in English Literature. What does that earn me? A slim chance at landing a career oriented job in a market that's pretty shaky. We've all ridden the dismal roller coaster ride that has been the mutating, transforming, and twisting of the anime and manga industries and endured the effects, and right now that's hitting closer to home, for me, than ever before.

I've researched roughly thirty three video game and comic book companies in the U.S. and Canada (woo dual citizenship), and so far the only jobs I have a realistic shot at getting are with Lucasarts. Not a bad deal by any stretch of the imagination, but come on. It's Lucasarts. I'm probably in line behind how many scores if not hundreds of applicants? The flip side is, I can more easily land something in QA testing for video games, but most of those positions are in Los Angeles or out of state, and moving that far for contractual work is a silly, silly idea.

Specifically, as far as anime and manga go, there's pretty much nothing but tumbleweeds and wishes floating across the internet. Honestly, with Viz scaling back and having posted and filled two jobs in the past year, Tokyopop shutting down it's North American manga localization, and Funimation shifting ownership, a lot of the big names are either shut down or shut out when it comes to new career options, but not to worry!

Fortunately for you and for me, in the coming months I'm going to attempt compiling a comprehensive list of all the manga, anime, and Japanese video game companies that have job openings. Once this list is made, I can hopefully update it on a revolving basis. Do you have any success stories of your own in this industry? Dismal tales? Let me know so I can share them in the news section!

It's all about community building, folks. Let's make it happen.