How to Apply to Kadokawa

Key Takeaways

Kadokawa Corporation hires through the Axol applicant tracking system at job.axol.jp/jn/c/kadokawa/public/top, confirmed live as of April 2026.
FromSoftware and other subsidiaries hire separately on their own sites; applying to Kadokawa's Axol portal will not surface FromSoftware, Dwango, or ENGI roles.
Japanese at business level is effectively required for all roles. Most interviews and written applications are Japanese-only.
The June 2024 BlackSuit ransomware attack reshaped the company's IT and security hiring. Infrastructure, security, and data engineering candidates should speak fluently about incident response and cloud migration.
Editorial roles require a portfolio of specific titles, measurable sales outcomes, and clear articulation of which imprint and which genre line you want to join.
New-graduate hiring runs through MyNavi plus the Axol portal on a traditional Japanese shinsotsu schedule; mid-career hiring is year-round.
The KADOKAWA Global Talent Bank accepts standing registrations in English and Japanese but is not a substitute for applying to specific open roles.
Interviews are formal, multi-round, and emphasize craft, cultural fit with the specific imprint or department, and composure under pressure.

About Kadokawa

Kadokawa Corporation (株式会社KADOKAWA) is one of Japan's largest integrated entertainment companies, with its headquarters in the Tokorozawa Sakura Town complex in Saitama and corporate offices in Tokyo's Chiyoda ward. The company traces its lineage back to 1945, when it was founded as a publishing house, and it reached its present form through the landmark 2014 merger between Kadokawa Corporation and Dwango, the video and technology company best known for operating Niconico, Japan's long-running streaming and user-generated-video platform. That merger created a group that, as of recent disclosures, runs with roughly five thousand consolidated employees and spans publishing, anime, film, games, streaming, education, and real-world destination entertainment. On the publishing side, Kadokawa is the dominant force in Japanese light novels and manga through imprints and subsidiaries such as Kadokawa Shoten, ASCII Media Works, Enterbrain, Fujimi Shobo, MediaWorks Bunko, Famitsu Bunko, and Dengeki Bunko. These imprints collectively shepherd franchises that have become defining works of modern Japanese popular culture, including Sword Art Online, Overlord, Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World, Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!, Oregairu, and countless manga series adapted into globally successful anime. The editorial department, known internally as henshū (編集), is the creative heart of the company and remains one of the most competitive places in Japan for editorial and producer-track talent. On the anime and film side, Kadokawa Pictures, ENGI, Animation Studio, and Kadokawa Daiei Studio produce and co-produce theatrical films, live-action dramas, and anime series. The group holds a majority stake in FromSoftware Inc., the game studio behind Armored Core, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring, which Kadokawa acquired in 2014. FromSoftware operates with its own recruiting website, its own hiring pipeline, and its own compensation and culture, so candidates interested in game development should treat it as a separate application path even though it is a consolidated subsidiary. Dwango continues to run Niconico and related streaming products, while Gentosha Comics, Sword Art Online licensing arms, and a global IP strategy team push Japanese intellectual property into overseas markets. The most important recent event shaping the company's hiring posture is the June 2024 cyberattack. In early June 2024, the BlackSuit ransomware group breached Kadokawa's systems in what became one of the most damaging cyber incidents in Japanese corporate history. Niconico suffered a multi-week outage that affected both creator livelihoods and the platform's advertising-dependent revenue, and internal data including employee records, financial documents, and contracts was leaked on the dark web after Kadokawa refused to pay the full ransom. The incident triggered a multi-hundred-million-yen hit to earnings, an extended recovery period for internal systems, and a sweeping reorganization of the group's IT security posture, cloud migration plans, and data governance. For candidates in IT, security, infrastructure, DevOps, and data engineering, this context matters: Kadokawa is rebuilding its technology foundation in public, and it is actively hiring engineers who can help. For candidates in editorial, production, or business roles, the incident shows up in interviews as questions about resilience, crisis communication, and how you work when systems are down. Additional context for 2024 and 2025 includes continued speculation about strategic alignment with Sony Group, which took a reported minority position during the post-breach period and is widely understood inside the industry to be deepening its partnership with Kadokawa on anime distribution, IP co-investment, and global platform integration. Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree expansion and its cultural dominance reinforced FromSoftware's position as the group's highest-profile studio, and the IP arm has pushed aggressively on North American and European localization through Yen Press and the group's overseas subsidiaries. Kadokawa remains a Japanese-primary workplace, with nearly all roles requiring business-level Japanese, and most day-to-day communication happens in Japanese even in roles labeled 'global'.

Application Process

1
Identify the correct hiring entity
Identify the correct hiring entity. Kadokawa is a holding group with many operating companies. The main editorial, producer, and corporate roles are hired through Kabushiki-gaisha KADOKAWA (株式会社KADOKAWA) at job.axol.jp/jn/c/kadokawa/public/top. FromSoftware, Dwango, ENGI, Bandai (Kadokawa subsidiary of same name), Kadokawa Daiei Studio, Spike Chunsoft, and others each run their own recruiting pages and should be applied to directly. Applying to the wrong subsidiary will not be routed internally.
2
For Kadokawa Corporation roles, create an account on the Axol ATS (job
For Kadokawa Corporation roles, create an account on the Axol ATS (job.axol.jp). Axol is a Japanese applicant tracking system widely used by media and publishing companies. You will register an email, set a password, complete a detailed Japanese-language profile, and upload a rirekisho (履歴書, standardized resume) and shokumu-keirekisho (職務経歴書, detailed work history). Expect the entire interface and all correspondence to be in Japanese.
3
Choose the correct track
Choose the correct track. Kadokawa publicly posts under six categories: Editor (編集職) across comic, light novel, literary/children's/practical, and magazine lanes; Producer/Director and IT (プロデューサー・ディレクター職 / IT職); Sales/Promotion (営業・宣伝); Support roles including licensing, proofreading, design, and production management (サポート職); Tokorozawa Sakura Town operational staff (ところざわサクラタウン関連); Corporate functions including strategy, IR, legal, PR, and internal control (コーポレート職); and Global/Overseas including local-hire positions abroad (海外・グローバル関連職).
4
Submit your application bundle
Submit your application bundle. For editorial and producer tracks, a portfolio or track record is effectively required. Include specific titles you have edited or produced, measurable results such as print runs, serialization placements, media mix outcomes, or web traffic figures, and a short cover message explaining why you want to work at Kadokawa specifically rather than at a competing publisher. Generic applications are filtered out early.
5
Complete any required assessments
Complete any required assessments. Mid-career candidates are frequently asked to complete a written test or take-home assignment relevant to the role, such as editing a sample manuscript, pitching a new light novel line, or writing a product strategy memo for a digital initiative. New-graduate candidates go through SPI3 (the Japanese standardized aptitude and personality assessment from Recruit Management Solutions), often administered through a testing center.
6
Interview rounds
Interview rounds. Mid-career hires typically see two to four rounds: an HR screening, a hiring-manager interview focused on craft and portfolio, a department-head or editor-in-chief interview, and a final round with an executive or board-level officer for senior positions. Expect all interviews in Japanese unless the posting explicitly marks the role as English-capable.
7
Offer and reference checks
Offer and reference checks. Offers arrive as a naitei (内定, informal offer) followed by a written employment contract. Reference checks are less common than in Western hiring but do occur for senior editorial and executive roles. Salary negotiation is possible for mid-career hires but constrained by internal bands; new graduates take the published starting wage.
8
Alternative path: the Global Talent Bank
Alternative path: the Global Talent Bank. Kadokawa also operates the KADOKAWA Global Talent Bank at group.kadokawa.co.jp/recruit/kadokawa/career/talent/, a standing CV database where you can register your profile in Japanese or English without applying to a specific posting. Recruiters match registered candidates to upcoming openings. Registration is not an application, and response times are long, but it is a reasonable option for overseas candidates or specialists who do not see a matching open role.

Resume Tips for Kadokawa

recommended

Submit in the Japanese two-document format

Submit in the Japanese two-document format. Kadokawa expects a rirekisho (履歴書), which is a standardized one-page personal record with a photo, date of birth, education history, and licenses, alongside a shokumu-keirekisho (職務経歴書), which is a longer narrative work history. Both should be in Japanese for mid-career roles unless you are applying to an explicitly English-facing global position.

recommended

Lead with the specific title franchises or IP you have touched

Lead with the specific title franchises or IP you have touched. Editorial recruiters at Kadokawa scan for franchise fluency. If you have edited a series that has sold over fifty thousand copies, shepherded a work through media mix into anime or film, or launched a digital-first light novel line, put the title and the measurable outcome in the first two lines of each role.

recommended

Quantify everything in units that matter to the publishing industry

Quantify everything in units that matter to the publishing industry. Print run size (初版部数), total sales (累計部数), weekly chapter cadence, serialization slot placement, bestseller chart rank, magazine readership, and sell-through rate all signal craft. Without numbers, your shokumu-keirekisho reads like a list of job titles.

recommended

For producer and IT roles, frame experience around IP lifecycle rather than gene

For producer and IT roles, frame experience around IP lifecycle rather than generic product metrics. Kadokawa producers think in terms of IP Life Time Value, which is the group's publicly stated strategy. Showing that you understand how a property moves from novel to manga to anime to game to merchandise - and that you have shipped work at one or more of those stages - matters more than vanity metrics like monthly active users divorced from franchise context.

recommended

Address the June 2024 cyberattack honestly if you are applying for IT, security,

Address the June 2024 cyberattack honestly if you are applying for IT, security, data, or infrastructure roles. The company is rebuilding. Candidates who show experience with ransomware recovery, zero-trust architecture, identity and access management modernization, cloud migration (AWS, GCP, Azure), backup and immutable storage strategy, or security operations center operations will find a receptive audience. Do not fabricate expertise you do not have; internal reviewers include engineers who lived through the incident.

recommended

Localize your name and contact information correctly

Localize your name and contact information correctly. If you have a Japanese name, write it in kanji with furigana above. If you are a non-Japanese applicant, write your name in katakana in addition to romaji, and list your Japanese visa status and residency if applicable. Employment is easier to offer when residency and work eligibility are already in place.

recommended

Attach a portfolio for creative roles

Attach a portfolio for creative roles. Editors should include a short list of works edited with specific contributions noted, and may attach sample manuscripts or edit-marked drafts where permitted by the originating publisher. Designers should include a PDF or URL portfolio. Producers should include pitch decks or IP strategy memos. Do not share anything covered by a non-disclosure agreement without redaction.

recommended

Skip the long English career objective

Skip the long English career objective. Japanese resumes do not use the Western-style objective statement. Replace it with a shibō-dōki (志望動機), a concise paragraph explaining specifically why Kadokawa, referencing either a franchise you love, a publishing challenge you want to help solve, or a specific editorial imprint you want to join. Generic enthusiasm for the anime industry is the most common reason applications are filtered out.

recommended

Photo expectations for the rirekisho are strict

Photo expectations for the rirekisho are strict. Use a formal studio photo taken within the last three months, in business attire, against a plain background, with a neutral expression. Photo booth shots at a train station are acceptable in a pinch, but a proper studio photo signals seriousness and is standard for editorial applications.

ATS System: Axol (アクセル) Recruitment System

Kadokawa Corporation posts and manages mid-career and new-graduate applications through Axol, a Japanese applicant tracking system hosted at job.axol.jp. The Kadokawa instance lives at job.axol.jp/jn/c/kadokawa/public/top and was live and actively posting across all seven job categories when verified in April 2026. Axol is designed for Japanese-language hiring workflows: it supports the rirekisho and shokumu-keirekisho upload model, handles photo attachments, and integrates with a MyPage portal where candidates track their application status, schedule interviews, and receive offer letters. Several Kadokawa subsidiaries including Dwango, ENGI, and Kadokawa Daiei Studio run their own recruiting sites on different platforms. FromSoftware, the game studio subsidiary, uses a separate system at fromsoftware-careers.snar.jp (Snar by i-plug). The new-graduate hiring process is additionally coordinated through the MyNavi student recruiting platform at job.mynavi.jp/26/pc/corpinfo/displayRecruitingCourseList/index/?corpId=252947, which is standard for Japanese shinsotsu recruiting. For senior candidates who want to be considered across all group subsidiaries without applying to a specific posting, Kadokawa runs a separate talent pool called the KADOKAWA Global Talent Bank at group.kadokawa.co.jp/recruit/kadokawa/career/talent/.

Register an Axol MyPage account before the posting deadline, since the platform occasionally closes registration a few days early for new-graduate cycles.
Japanese character handling is strict. Write your name in kanji or katakana as appropriate, double-check furigana on every field, and avoid pasting content that contains full-width and half-width character mixing, which can fail silent validation.
Upload the rirekisho and shokumu-keirekisho as PDF rather than Word where possible. PDF renders consistently on the recruiter side and prevents font-substitution errors with vertical Japanese text.
The platform sends all correspondence through your registered email. Whitelist the axol.jp domain in your email client so that interview invitations and assessment links do not land in spam.
Do not create multiple accounts. If you applied in a previous cycle, log in with your existing credentials. Duplicate accounts are flagged and can delay screening by weeks.
For FromSoftware applications, use the Snar-hosted site at fromsoftware-careers.snar.jp; the Kadokawa Axol portal does not surface FromSoftware roles.
Registering with the Global Talent Bank is not equivalent to applying. If you want to be considered for a currently-open role, you must apply through the specific posting on Axol or the relevant subsidiary site.

Interview Culture

Kadokawa interviews are formal, Japanese-primary, and calibrated to the specific craft you are interviewing for.

For editorial positions, expect a multi-round process that tests three things in roughly equal weight: your craft as an editor, your commercial instinct, and your cultural fit with a particular imprint or genre line. A typical sequence for a mid-career editorial role is an HR screening focused on work history and motivation, followed by a hiring-editor interview where you will be asked to discuss specific works you have shepherded, followed by a round with the henshū-chō (editor-in-chief) or bumon-chō (department head) that includes a mini case exercise such as evaluating a sample manuscript, pitching a new series concept, or describing how you would reposition a stagnating franchise, and a final round with an executive that focuses on strategic alignment and long-term contribution. Producer-track interviews follow the same shape but emphasize cross-media IP thinking, budget management, and the ability to work with animation studios, licensors, and overseas partners. IT, security, and engineering interviews have intensified since the 2024 cyberattack. Expect direct, technical questions about incident response, identity architecture, cloud security, and how you would harden a publishing and streaming technology stack that historically ran on legacy infrastructure. You should prepare to discuss specific breaches you have handled, specific tools you have deployed (SIEM, EDR, IAM systems, backup and recovery platforms), and how you think about the trade-off between resilience and creative velocity in a content company. Interviewers are particularly interested in engineers who can speak respectfully about both the legacy systems Kadokawa is migrating away from and the cloud-native architectures it is moving toward. Dress code is strict business attire for all in-person rounds, meaning a dark suit, white shirt, and conservative tie or blouse, even for creative roles. Online rounds have slightly relaxed dress expectations, but leaning conservative is always safer. Arrive five to ten minutes early, bow rather than shake hands when greeted, use keigo (formal Japanese honorifics) throughout unless explicitly told to speak casually, and bring physical copies of your rirekisho and shokumu-keirekisho even if you submitted them electronically. When discussing works you have edited or produced, speak about them with the respect due to the author or original creator; claiming too much individual credit is a common way foreign applicants misstep in Japanese creative industries. Questions to expect include why you chose Kadokawa specifically rather than Shueisha, Shogakukan, Kodansha, or another major publisher; what franchise you would most want to work on and why; how you would handle a creative disagreement with a bestselling author; how you think about the tension between preserving a fan community and pushing a property into new media; and for any role, how you handled a crisis or unexpected setback in your past work. The crisis question carries extra weight after the 2024 breach, because the company itself lived through a crisis and wants people who can function when things break. Salary and benefits questions are typically reserved for the final round or the offer conversation; raising them early reads as presumptuous. Expect the full process to take three to six weeks for mid-career roles and three to six months for new-graduate cycles.

What Kadokawa Looks For

Business-level Japanese (ビジネスレベル日本語) at minimum for nearly every role. JLPT N1 or equivalent is the practical bar for editorial, producer, and corporate positions. Global-tagged roles may accept N2 plus strong English, but daily operations still run in Japanese.
Deep, demonstrable fluency with Japanese publishing, anime, games, or streaming culture. Recruiters can tell within minutes whether a candidate is a reader of the imprint they want to join or only a casual fan. Name the specific works, editors, and creators you admire when asked.
Evidence of having shipped something. For editors, that means published titles with your hand in them. For producers, that means properties you have moved through the IP lifecycle. For engineers, that means systems in production with measurable uptime or security improvements. Unfinished or academic-only portfolios are a weak signal.
Resilience and crisis composure. The 2024 cyberattack sharpened the company's preference for people who stay effective when systems fail, deadlines slip, or franchises stumble. Stories of navigating ambiguity, working with incomplete information, and delivering despite setbacks land well.
IP Life Time Value thinking. Kadokawa's explicit strategy is to maximize the long-term value of intellectual property across formats and geographies. Candidates who can connect their individual work to that group-level objective - whether they are editing a single manga chapter or architecting a cloud migration - stand out.
Collaboration across historically siloed departments. Kadokawa has been actively breaking down walls between publishing, anime, games, and streaming. Candidates who have worked across creative and technical teams, or across Japanese and overseas markets, are increasingly favored.
Cultural humility for non-Japanese applicants. Showing that you understand Japanese work norms - around hierarchy, consensus, and the primacy of the creator relationship - matters more than showing that you will import Western practices. Arriving with strong opinions about how Kadokawa should be modernized rarely wins rooms.
For FromSoftware specifically, which hires separately, deep games craft. The studio has a high bar for programmers, designers, and artists with shipped console or PC titles. Generic mobile game experience or portfolio work alone is rarely enough.
For Dwango and Niconico roles, live-service and creator-economy chops. The platform's post-breach rebuild emphasizes engineers and product managers who understand the economics of creator payouts, moderation at scale, and live streaming resilience.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Kadokawa require Japanese language ability?

For nearly all roles, yes - at business level. The entire Axol application portal, the rirekisho and shokumu-keirekisho documents, and essentially all interviews and day-to-day work are in Japanese. JLPT N1 or equivalent is the practical bar for editorial, producer, and corporate tracks. A small number of global-tagged positions, particularly in overseas IP licensing and localization, accept N2 plus near-native English, but internal communication still happens in Japanese most of the time.

Does applying to Kadokawa cover FromSoftware?

No. FromSoftware is a majority-owned subsidiary of Kadokawa but hires through its own site at careers.fromsoftware.jp (with the actual job board at fromsoftware-careers.snar.jp). If you want to work on Elden Ring, Armored Core, or a future Souls-adjacent title, you must apply through FromSoftware's own recruiting pipeline. The same is true for Dwango, ENGI, Kadokawa Daiei Studio, Spike Chunsoft, and other group companies.

How did the June 2024 cyberattack affect hiring?

It meaningfully accelerated hiring in IT, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, and data engineering, and it introduced crisis-response questioning across all interview tracks. Kadokawa lost weeks of Niconico service, had internal data leaked by the BlackSuit ransomware group, and took a material hit to earnings. The company has been publicly rebuilding its security posture since then, and candidates who can credibly speak to ransomware recovery, identity modernization, zero-trust architecture, and backup immutability are in high demand. For non-technical roles, expect at least one behavioral question about how you performed during a crisis.

What is the Axol ATS and do I need an account?

Axol (job.axol.jp) is the Japanese applicant tracking system that Kadokawa Corporation uses for both mid-career and new-graduate hiring. Yes, you need to register an account (called a MyPage) to apply for any open posting. Registration is free, asks for basic personal information and a password, and then prompts you to fill in the full rirekisho and shokumu-keirekisho forms plus upload supporting documents. Whitelist the axol.jp domain in your email client so that interview invitations and assessment links do not go to spam.

Can overseas candidates apply?

Yes, but with caveats. The KADOKAWA Global Talent Bank at group.kadokawa.co.jp/recruit/kadokawa/career/talent/ explicitly invites overseas applicants to register a profile in Japanese or English, and a subset of postings on Axol are tagged as global or overseas-based. However, most roles expect either existing Japanese work authorization or a strong case for visa sponsorship, and business-level Japanese is still the default expectation. Candidates without Japanese fluency have the best odds in specialized technical roles, overseas-market IP licensing, and localization roles.

What is a rirekisho and a shokumu-keirekisho?

They are the two standard Japanese application documents. The rirekisho (履歴書) is a one- or two-page standardized resume with a photo, personal details, education history, work history in bullet form, licenses and certifications, and a shibō-dōki (motivation statement). The shokumu-keirekisho (職務経歴書) is a longer narrative document, typically two to four pages, that describes each of your past roles in detail including responsibilities, projects, measurable outcomes, and technologies or skills used. Japanese publishers expect both. Templates are widely available from MyNavi, Doda, and Recruit.

Are there new-graduate recruiting cycles?

Yes. Kadokawa runs a traditional Japanese shinsotsu (新卒, new graduate) hiring cycle coordinated through MyNavi at job.mynavi.jp/26/pc/corpinfo/displayRecruitingCourseList/index/?corpId=252947 as well as through the Axol portal. The cycle for graduates entering the workforce in April of year N typically opens registration in February to March of year N-1, with seminars and early selection through the summer, SPI3 testing and initial interviews in the fall, and naitei (informal offers) issued in the late fall or winter. International students at Japanese universities can usually participate on the same schedule; candidates at non-Japanese universities should check the global-tagged posting.

Is a portfolio required?

For editorial and producer roles, effectively yes. You should arrive with a written list of titles you have worked on, the specific nature of your contribution, and hard sales or engagement numbers wherever possible. For design, art direction, and animation roles, a PDF or link portfolio is standard. For engineering and corporate roles, portfolios are optional but GitHub accounts, published technical writing, or past strategy decks add signal. Never share materials covered by an existing NDA without explicit permission or redaction.

What is the salary range?

Kadokawa does not publish universal salary bands, and compensation varies significantly by role, experience, and subsidiary. As a rough reference for Tokyo-based roles, new-graduate base salaries fall within the standard large-Japanese-publisher range, and mid-career editorial and producer roles typically align with other major publishers like Shueisha, Shogakukan, and Kodansha. Engineering and IT salaries in the post-2024 rebuild have moved upward to compete with Japanese tech companies. Overseas roles are benchmarked to the local market. Salary discussions are traditionally deferred to late-stage interviews or the offer conversation; raising them in a first-round screening reads as presumptuous.

What should I avoid in the application?

Avoid generic enthusiasm for anime or manga as your only motivation - recruiters see thousands of these. Avoid claiming solo credit for team work in Japanese creative industries, where the author and the publishing team's relationship is central. Avoid sending the same materials you sent to a competing publisher. Avoid applying through the Global Talent Bank when a matching open posting exists; apply to the specific posting instead. And avoid sharing post-2024-breach speculation, leaked internal documents, or ransomware-related rumors during the interview - it is a sensitive topic and candidates who reference leaked materials will not be hired.

How long does the process take?

For mid-career hires, expect three to six weeks from application to offer for standard roles, and longer for senior editorial, producer, or executive positions. For new-graduate cycles, the full timeline can span eight to twelve months from initial seminar attendance to naitei issuance. If you have not heard back within two weeks of a round, a polite follow-up email through the Axol MyPage is appropriate.

How to Apply to Kadokawa

Key Takeaways

About Kadokawa

Application Process

Resume Tips for Kadokawa

Submit in the Japanese two-document format

Lead with the specific title franchises or IP you have touched

Quantify everything in units that matter to the publishing industry

For producer and IT roles, frame experience around IP lifecycle rather than gene

Address the June 2024 cyberattack honestly if you are applying for IT, security,

Localize your name and contact information correctly

Attach a portfolio for creative roles

Skip the long English career objective

Photo expectations for the rirekisho are strict

ATS System: Axol (アクセル) Recruitment System

Interview Culture

What Kadokawa Looks For

Frequently Asked Questions

Open Positions

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