First lesson? Gaming. Second lesson? Gaming. Tokyo technical school offers courses to aspiring e-sports athletes.
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Unfortunately, not everyone can be professional princesses, steam train drivers or pirate captains, and so we have to find something else to do to pay the bills. Maybe for some lucky individuals, they’ll have worked out what they want to do by the time they finish compulsory education, and head off to university, vocational school, or into the big, wide world. In Japan, chances are that whether you want to be a ninja, sword sharpener, anime expert, comedian, or a programming maid (among other occupations), there’s a class or school for it. Now there’s another to add to the list: pro gamer.
The Tokyo School of Anime, which unsurprisingly also has a number of courses for those aspiring to work in the anime industry or as voice actors, also has a number of courses that focus on the increasingly popular and lucrative e-sports industry. The six majors currently on offer are “e-sports Professional Gamer”, “e-sports Caster”, “e-sports Publicity”, “e-sports Event Staff”, and the more recently added “e-sports Management” and “e-sports Game Creator”.
▼ Do you have what it takes to be a professional athlete, who sits in a comfortable chair?
▼ Or maybe making the games is more your thing?
▼ Not your typical classroom, with state-of-the-art gaming platforms.
Coursework includes “Game Playing I” and “Game Playing Basic” to up your skills, but there’s so much more to being a virtual gladiator than just quick reactions and gameplay experience, or at least that’s what other coursework titles like “Professional Mind” and “Business Manner” would suggest.
▼ It doesn’t say anywhere on the website about classes dealing with the all-important choosing of your pro-gamer name; perhaps young Jungle Dominion here had to come up with his all on his own.
And should you find yourself short a few credits, the school awards credits for participation in club activities, but no debate or rowing team here; you can join the school’s Cos-play or Anime Song Video Club instead.
Does the course work? While it’s still in its infancy it’s perhaps a bit early to say, but this summer saw a Tokyo School of Anime team from the course travel to China to represent Japan at the 2017 League of Legends International College Cup – although one of the Chinese teams, Haikou College of Economics, took the top spot.
With the e-sports industry growing every year, and the top-class players travelling the world and making a pretty penny through winnings and sponsorship deals, the school will be sure to get plenty of applicants. If only the School of Anime would take a leaf out of another school’s book and have the course taught by cute maids, (and butlers), then it would be perfect. And if enrolling in a course seems a bit long-term for you, e-sports love hotels are apparently now a thing over in Taiwan.
Source: Tokyo School of Anime via Otakomu
Top image: Tokyo School of Anime
Insert images: Tokyo School of Anime, YouTube/TokyoSchoolofAnime