Japan Community Manager (Gaming)

About Us

Step into the world of Soulbound, a charming pixel-art MMORPG where your adventures unfold through exploration, crafting, home-building, guild camaraderie, and fun with friends. Imagine the nostalgic social connection of classic MMOs blended with the warm embrace of modern cozy gaming, all set in a meticulously handcrafted pixel-art universe. Our passionate indie team of 20+ is gearing up for launch. We move quickly, place immense trust in our team, and value what you create far more than your resume.

The Role

We're looking for someone to build our Japanese community from the ground up. Japan has one of the deepest MMO cultures on the planet, and we want someone who lives and breathes it. You'll be responsible for establishing Soulbound's presence in the Japanese market: managing a dedicated Japanese Discord channel, building relationships with Japanese content creators and guilds, localising our community voice (not just translating, making it feel native), and becoming the bridge between our global team and Japanese speaking players.

What You'll Do

• Build and manage a dedicated Japanese channels on our Discord server from scratch, including channel structure, roles, bots, and moderation
• Develop a Japanese community growth strategy targeting MMO players, guild leaders, and content creators
• Identify, reach out to, and build relationships with Japanese YouTubers, streamers, and content creators who cover MMOs, pixel art games, or cozy games
• Engage with Japanese gaming communities on platforms like Twitter/X (JP gaming Twitter is massive), Niconico, YouTube, and 5ch/game forums
• Work with Japanese MMO guilds to bring organised groups into Soulbound. Understand how JP guild culture differs from Western guild culture and leverage that
• Localise community announcements, patch notes, and event communications. Not machine translation. Native-level writing that feels right to a Japanese audience
• Run community events tailored to Japanese player culture (housing contests, guild showcases, seasonal events that resonate locally)
• Prepare weekly reports on Japanese community sentiment, growth metrics, content creator pipeline, and cultural insights the team should know about
• Act as the cultural advisor to the wider team on anything related: what resonates, what doesn't, how to avoid missteps
• Coordinate with our Community Director on cross-community events and consistent messaging

Requirements

• Native-level Japanese (reading, writing, speaking). Non-negotiable. You're writing community posts, responding to players, and negotiating with creators in Japanese
• Fluent English (professional working proficiency minimum). You need to communicate clearly with the UK-based team
• Deep personal experience with MMOs. You've played them seriously. You understand why people stay in these games for years
• Understanding of the Japanese gaming content creator landscape: who the major gaming YouTubers are, how VTubers fit in, which streamers cover MMOs vs. action games
• Experience with Japanese online communities (Discord JP servers, Twitter JP gaming community, Niconico, 5ch gaming boards)
• Knowledge of Japanese guild culture in MMOs (how JP FCs/LSes/guilds recruit, organise, and communicate differently from Western guilds)
• Self-starter. You see an opportunity to promote Soulbound to a JP audience and you act on it before anyone asks

Bonus Points

• Previous community management experience at a game studio (especially for a Western game launching in Japan)
• Existing relationships with Japanese gaming content creators
• Understanding of Japan's content creator agency landscape
• Played FFXIV, PSO2, Dragon Quest X, or other JP-heavy MMOs extensively
• Can create short-form video content in Japanese
• Experience localising gaming content (not just translation, actual cultural localisation)