Cool School Alert!

Wataru Yoshida’s school looks like a spaceship. It has sleek glass floors and glowing neon tubes on the ceiling, and it’s shaped like a pod. But the decor isn’t the only unusual part. The 16-year-old’s daily classwork includes hours of video game training!

The teen and about two dozen others attend Japan’s first esports high school, which opened in Tokyo in 2022. Esports is short for electronic sports. Players face off in organized video game competitions, typically in teams. 

Over the past two decades, esports have soared in popularity around the world. They have become a billion-dollar industry. 

Wataru’s school was founded to train future professional gamers. But educators say the academy is also addressing a major challenge: getting struggling students back in school. 

School absenteeism, which is often linked to anxiety or bullying, has long been a problem in Japan. The country’s schools have strict rules, which can be difficult for many students. Some refuse to attend at all. Wataru, for example, often stayed home and played video games instead. 

That’s where the esports school stands out. Three days a week, pros teach students strategies for games like Fortnite. The other two, students take subjects like math and science. Classes don’t start until 10 a.m. and no uniforms are required. 

Wataru, who is thriving there, hopes to make it big as a gamer. 

“I should probably go home,” he said after a recent video game tournament at school. Instead, he returned to his monitor. It was time to get back to his team.

—with reporting by The New York Times