Welcome to our school! ～NDS Tokyo and JMC Academy～

Click here to read the article in 日本語.

Hello and Welcome! This is KB from the PicoN! editorial team.

Ever wonder what it’s like to study at an art school…in another country?

In this series of articles, we’ll interview students and take a peek inside schools for the creative arts from all around the world. To kick things off, a two-part article on our own Nippon Designers School Tokyo and JMC Academy in Sydney, Australia!

But first, some background.

Front entrance of NDS and NPI Tokyo.

NDS Entrance Hall.

Nippon Designers School (NDS), founded in 1965, is of course the school which runs this lovely media platform, located in Shibuya, Tokyo Japan. NDS and its sister schools have campuses in Tokyo, Fukuoka and most recently Malaysia. At the Tokyo campus, students can learn Visual Design, Graphic Design, Interior Design, Illustration, Manga and Comic Illustration. The campus also holds our school for photography, Nippon Photography Institute (NPI).

NDS had the opportunity to host students of JMC Academy for part of their summer Study Abroad to Japan this summer.

JMC Academy Melbourne Campus.

JMC Academy Brisbane Campus.

JMC Academy was established in 1982 as a private college for the creative arts and technology. Currently with campuses in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, some of the things you can study at JMC include Music, Songwriting, Audio Engineering, Film and Television Production, Acting, Entertainment Business Management, Visual Communication (Design), Animation, Game Design and Music Production.
The Melbourne campus of JMC Academy, noted for its cultural and educational significance, plays a key role in the institution’s network. This campus, along with the support from the Victorian Government Office in Tokyo, has been central to the development of the partnership with NDS.

I invited a couple students to tell me about their school experience.

Runa

Hi, I’m Runa. I’m studying comic illustration at Nippon Designers School, Tokyo.

Lilli

I’m Lilli, I’m studying for my Bachelor of Animation and Game Design with a major in Game Design at JMC Academy in Sydney Australia.

☼KB: Can you tell me, what is the most prominent feature of your school?

☽Runa: My school has a lot of unique characteristics, but I was especially surprised by how our lessons are 140 minutes each, and very long. At first, I was worried I might not be able to stay focused, but when I’m concentrating deeply on my work, or when the teacher reviews my pieces, or when I’m exchanging ideas with my friends, I find that 140 minutes suddenly passes by in no time.

☆Lilli: Our school is small, but it has a big focus on project work as in the Australian industry a lot of game and animation work are in groups. We have multiple assessments which rely on working on projects for one or two trimesters in groups. These groups can range from 2-3 people to much larger; my current group include 9 people.

JMC Academy Sydney auditorium.

NDS students listening to a guest lecture by JMC Academy.

☼KB: What are the students like at your school?

☽Runa: Most of the students are cheerful and easy to talk to. Usually everyone studies very earnestly and seriously during class, so I feel like they keep a good balance of serious and relaxed.

☆Lilli: Most of the students at my university are very approachable and friendly. It’s a very diverse school especially with students part of the LGBT+ community.

Students chatting with a teacher in the NDS/NPI student hall.

☼KB: What are the teachers like?

☽Runa: Our teachers are also extremely friendly. In all of my classes, my teachers make sure to look at each and every student as an individual.

☆Lilli: Our lecturers are very chill, a few of them are alumni themselves so they are quite understanding. I find my lectures always try to push me to do my best and learn more which I find incredibly helpful.

JMC Academy Sydney Common Area.

☼KB: Sounds like a great environment for friendly rivalry and mutual improvement! How about lessons? What are your favourite and least favourite classes?

☆Lilli: My least favourite classes are the theory classes we have. In Australia in order for a course to be approved by the government it must have a set number of theory classes. A lot of the theory classes in my degree are focused on animation rather than games so it is less relevant to me.
One of my favourite classes I’ve done was Game Design, where we would create board games to work on our game design skills. We would also take classic games such as Snakes and Ladders, and workshop how we would change the game to reinforce a different experience in the player.
Overall, my favourite classes are the workshop classes. In these classes we come in and work on our group projects, and one teacher is there just to help out if they are needed. It’s a great time to bounce ideas of your group members and it’s a productive space.

☽Runa: My class on background expression is both my favourite and least favourite class. The first thing we learn in background expression is how to draw perspective, but it’s very difficult. There were a lot of times my drawings didn’t sit properly on top of the perspective lines, so it was really tough. But because of that, when I was able to take what I learned and draw a background that really made my character pop, there was nothing that could take the place of the joy I felt then. I can feel myself improve with every lesson, which is why to me it’s the class I don’t feel very good at, but also like a lot.

☼KB: When I was a student, I definitely enjoyed my hands-on classes the most, too.
What made you decide to study the creative arts?

JMC Academy students in Tokyo on the Summer Study Abroad Trip.

☆Lilli: I decided to study games as growing up they have been a constant in my life, and playing them has taught me so many things. I play games to hang out with friends, to express my creativity, to be competitive, to have fun – this versatility is what drew me to games initially. However, I’ve come to fall in love with the creation process of games. I love coding and problem solving and thinking of new ways to put a twist on my favourite game genres. I originally wasn’t sure if I wanted to focus on game art or game design, however, I realised I would much rather keep art as a hobby rather than a profession. I find technical drawings such as turnaround very tedious!

☽Runa: I loved drawing ever since I was little, and once I got a smartphone one of my hobbies was to look at the drawings of famous illustrators. My admiration of illustration as a career already existed then, but it was when I was a high school student that I first felt strongly that I wanted to study the creative arts. I drew an illustration and designed the class T-shirt for our school culture festival, and when I saw my classmates all having fun and wearing the completed T-shirts, my heart was overwhelmed with a feeling of happiness that I’d never felt before. It was through this experience that I made the decision to study the creative arts.

Those sound like they’re wonderful memories! We’ll wrap it up for part one here. In part two, let’s hear more about the NDS and JMC campuses!

Special Thanks! to JMC Academy and NPI student Yuuta Hatanaka for the photographs for this article.

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