Let's Japan.org

Things are apparently looking good at G.communication. Its president, Masaki Inayoshi, sat down with the Chunichi Shimbun to talk about the past year.

The luxury “office” that former Nova president Nozomu Sahashi claimed was actually a showroom is no more.

The General Union has posted details of an agreement between G.communication/G.education on their website. As you are aware, ever since NOVA went bankrupt, the General Union has been busy trying to get G.communication to rehire all of the instructors that were fired when G.com took over. It appears that they have succeeded.

The Nikkei published an interesting article last week [free registration required] on the legal battle leading up to the Supreme Court decision that helped push NOVA into oblivion. I had no idea that one man took on NOVA and changed things.

Nova's trustees have released a report [PDF] on the state of Nova's assets that gives us a look into the scale of the meltdown. The report is in English and is pretty mundane. There are a few nuggets that caught my eye, however.

I have no way of substantiating this, but it seems that G.communication may be getting ready to float the company on the stock market.

I just noticed this in comments and thought it might be worth a closer look.

From Gendai net comes a story about...wait for it...students having trouble booking lessons! It's deja vu all over again. (I'm sure I've used that cliche already. Is there an echo in here?)

If you've been following the developments of neo-Nova since its collapse, then The Japan Times story about Nova instructors and staff who are still out of a job six months after G.communication took over is old news.

G.communication's craptacular rebirth of Nova continues.

Apparently, G.communications has an "ace" up its sleeve. After posting the article about G.communication's plan for success, the Asahi ran ran a similar story a few days later but with a slight difference in the details.

A story in the Fuji Sankei Business i says that G.communication has turned things around and will be back in the black in May.

The writing is on the wall. G.communication's attempts at reviving Nova's corpse have been an unmitigated disaster. The Yukan Fuji writes that Nova is turning out to be a sucking chest wound that threatens to take down the entire G.communication group. As the article points out, G.communication has lost at least ¥1.7 billion since taking over Nova. Here's a translation of the article.

This is so good it makes you think it's an April Fool's joke. G.communication is upset that other schools have been poaching their students!

So far, it appears that g.communication has botched the rebirth of Nova. No matter how much lipstick they try and put on it, neo-Nova still looks like a pig. I did a little digging in the forums and came up with a few choice nuggets from ex_sensei that illustrate how bad things are going for g.com. The picture he paints makes the old Nova look good by comparison.

The union was at it again today, hounding g.communication over its refusal to rehire former Nova employees.

The Japanese press has caught whiff of what instructors still hanging on with neo-Nova already know: many are losing their jobs through some creative firing. UPDATED

Here's a translation of an article in the Asahi Shimbun:

G.communication has announced in a press release that it will open their first franchise school and franchise the neo-Nova schools. [PDF in Japanese].

As mentioned in comments, Hideo Sugimoto has replaced Takashi Ono as the head of g.education. Ono will assume the role of vice president.

Towards the end of January, the contents of a fax from g.communication was posted in the forums stating that instructors who were absent from work stood to lose their jobs.

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has decided to give Nova students a ¥200,000 yen subsidy.