Every April, Japan’s campuses erupt into motionless choreography: identical black suits, tied-back hair, solemn eyes. Beneath this theater of readiness lies the quiet tyranny of shinsotsu.
Everyone Together Now: The Illusion of Equality
In Japan, job hunting is a synchronized sport for young people. Matching suits, shared résumés, identical calendars of dread. Every spring, thousands of twenty-somethings march in lockstep toward the same goal: April employment. It’s not a race, it’s a ritual.
Hand in hand, they run the race. Anyone who stumbles is disqualified.
This phrase isn’t metaphorical. In some Japanese primary schools, children are instructed to finish footraces together by holding hands, so that nobody “wins” or “loses.” The logic: shared finish lines prevent the formation of a hierarchy and ensure that no one feels inferior.
It’s adorable. Until it becomes policy.
Corporate Japan borrows this choreography. Equal footing, equal phrasing, equal dreams, then weaponizes it against individuality. As a result, a workforce trained to prioritize harmony over honesty, optics over outcomes. The ceremony of sameness becomes the curriculum of control.
April Admissions: Corporate as the New School
The first day of work is not a beginning, it’s a reenactment. Employees “enter” companies in April, like students entering first grade. There’s an entrance ceremony. There’s a uniform (the recruitment suit). There’s a welcome speech. And of course, there’s a curriculum: etiquette, honorific language, “how to apologize professionally,” and the sacred art of pretending to write things down.
Maturity isn’t required. Just the ability to mimic it.
The manager becomes a homeroom teacher. The company becomes a classroom. And the employee? A student forever. Asked not to contribute, but to absorb. Not to think, but to assimilate. It’s onboarding as indoctrination, training as surrender.
The Shinsotsu Myth: Packaging Potential
“Shinsotsu（新卒）” literally translates to “new graduate.” But what it truly signals are “unformed, unthreatening, and easy to mold.” Zero experience is not a flaw, it’s a feature. Companies don’t want expertise; they want plasticity. Blank canvases who nod earnestly and make no sudden moves.
“You’re full of potential” often means “You haven’t complicated things with real-world thinking yet.”
One job applicant spent a year backpacking across South America. In his interviews, he positioned this as “global grit” and “cross-cultural agility.” The hiring manager smiled politely, then asked, “Why didn’t you just stay in Japan and work part-time?”
Another one—let’s call him the Shinsotsu Card Disciple—used his backpacking stint as a crown jewel in interviews. He was hired. He spoke in fluent buzzwords. He wore “engagement” and “ownership” like cologne.
But when projects stalled, he’d deflect with, “I’m still new. I joined as a new graduate.” Twelve months in, he still said it. Fourteen months in, he said it louder. Eighteen months in, he vanished.
Potentially Employed: The Extended Kindergarten
The infantilization doesn’t end with graduation. Mid-career professionals are lured in by Potential Hire job ads, coded language that promises growth, but mostly just offers behavioral training.
Real phrases from real listings:
- “No experience necessary!”
- “Your enthusiasm matters more than your résumé!”
- “Young members thrive here!”
- “Let’s build our company together!”
- “Comprehensive training program available!”
- “Second graduates welcome!”
(second graduates: Japan’s official euphemism for ‘didn’t last long at your first job but we’ll pretend you’re still moldable’)
The language is cheerful. The subtext is chilling: We don’t want your past. We want your pliability.
These ads never ask: What do you want to build? What are you brilliant at? What systems have you broken?
They ask: Will you bow correctly? Will you smile consistently? Will you let us rename your identity?
And so the nation performs onboarding on loop. Even as productivity dips to the lowest among the G7, the goal remains unchanged: Prepare them forever. Promote them rarely.
The Specters and The Undead Shinsotsu: Expired but Still Believing
Inside the office floats a ghost: the ideal Japanese employee. No one created it. No one can describe it. But everyone feels its presence. “That’s not how we do things.” “Let’s stay professional.” “Don’t make trouble.”
These are not instructions. They’re incantations. They echo in hallway conversations, in silent approvals, in passive-aggressive Slack messages.
Some employees cling to their “new graduate” identity like a cherished medal. They refer to themselves as “Shinsotsu” long after the paperwork says otherwise. It becomes a spell. “I’m still learning,” “I’m new to this,” “I joined as a new graduate,” they say, almost like a mantra.
When challenged, they vanish. When tasked, they defer. When praised, they blush modestly.
One Shinsotsu disciple was entrusted with a project to improve processes. A year and a half after joining the workforce, he still referred to his rookiehood as if it were gospel. Within weeks, he burned out. He disappeared.
HR announced: “He’s leaving us and focusing on his side business now.”
Translation: He ghosted the company, left his tasks unfinished, and was granted medical leave as cover.
No closure. No handover. Just polite erasure.
Corporate Kindergarten: Forever in Formation
Japan doesn’t suffer from immaturity. It suffers from institutionalized pre-adulthood. The workplace pretends to nurture, but merely rehearses obedience. It praises potential, but punishes momentum. It hires for hope, but fears actual conviction.
Welcome to Corporate Kindergarten.
Take off your shoes, put on your smile, and join the line.
Forever entry-level, forever performing maturity.
