Pros
-Brilliant co workers. Made more friends there than at any other job. So welcoming and always willing to help you out. -Office is nicely located near Shinjuku and countless places to eat out at lunch. -Office ferret to play with during the day. -Opportunities to move around and use different skills if you want to, but only if you really pester the boss as he tends to forget things you've told him a thousand times. -Paid for evening outings and nomikai once every 2-3 months. -Visas offered almost immediately. -Some enjoyable projects.
Cons
-The office is filthy, especially with a ferret running around. There is no cleaner and EMPLOYEES are on a rota to empty the bins in the kitchen themselves every day even during the busiest times. One time a senior artist had to spend a few hours of his day unblocking the men's toilet. -Not even sure the ferret is allowed in office. Kind of worrying to be breaking the building rules so blatantly. -The boss has some serious anger issues. Within a couple of days of working there I witnessed him screaming and swearing his head off right in the middle of the office and start rolling about on the floor. This anger, I noticed rubbed off onto the other employees and created a generally terrible and stressful atmosphere to work in. -So many empty promises. Whether it's getting hardware working or promises of bigger projects, you quickly learn never to take anything seriously that comes out of the boss' mouth. -Terrible IT management as the boss insists on doing it all himself, despite obviously being pretty busy running the company and finding new work. This of course causes so many delays to projects and wastes employees time. Insists he cant hire any IT staff because it's unaffordable, yet a week later he'll have hired 3 new animators and bought 5 huge flat screen TVs. -Paranoia all round. Constant talk among employees of the boss spying into our personal data, including personal emails, online IM and even keystrokes. Hence why he wont hire anyone else to help with the IT jobs. Employees have no trust in him because he has no trust in them- he thinks the world is out to get him so blocks anyone transferring any kind of data even if it's just for personal showreel use. -Long hours and low pay despite big talk of being 'the best animation company in Japan' (sometimes the world!) and how 'this company is so different to all the rest'. Overtime expected. People who left on time (7:30pm) I often heard being talked about as "leaving early". Others would stay up to 4:30am at the office still expected to attend the all important dailies at 9:30 on the dot the next day. -Boss is also pretty sexist despite so much talk that he's all about equality. Constantly talks about hiring more female staff into technical roles to the point of pushing one girl into it who told me she wasn't even interested in the role. Wants more female leads on projects but always finds excuses to put males as leads instead. Like others have said, lots of sexist jokes. -Most work is pretty boring. Pachinko mainly. -Artists forced into roles they didn't apply for with endless promises things would change. Many artists undervalued. -Certain staff are constantly complained about by multiple employees, yet nothing is done about it. -No travel expenses or medical insurance which is expected of most Japanese companies. -If you quit, expect your notice period to be taken from you and fired on the spot, or even phone calls and emails after you've left with threats and demands.