PLETHORA - top posting here needs his fucking cunt kicked off. To state, without knowing shit about the quality of interested tutors in Japan that we have nothing to offer except our native language only shows this person’s level of intelligence up. I think we can all imagine that this individual would step over a blood spattered student and fuck off down the pub to meet his equally ignorant friends: or maybe would change tune if to discover that NOVA (learning something) was advised to the unbalanced! We welcome a full investigation - and if we can ward off ignorant comments like this which are likely to fuck up my job prospects, then we will.

How about giving me your address? (And description). Think before you comment upon peoples energies about which you know Jack Shit!

Call.

On the bright side, now that NOVA is no more, millions of trees have been spared stupid notes and drawings in lessons.

I was going by what Sahashi said in this interview on NNN:

http://tinyurl.com/yrxqwb

… in which he explains that ‘nova’ is Latin for ‘new’…

… and then goes on to explain that it’s English for ‘新星’ (new star).

The first time I watched this video, I was having buffering problems with the download, so I guess the ’shinsei’ bit got chopped off. I had a better connection just now when I watched gain.

My apologies to Bone for the mistaken contradiction on the origin of NOVA’s name.

Interestingly, if you watch that video, which is copyrighted 2006, you’ll see that Sahashi’s penthouse office (but not the bedroom, bath, sauna, or お茶の間) was shown to the public by Sahashi himself well before the court-appointed trustees decided to humiliate him by inviting the media to see it on Tuesday. I guess nobody was paying attention.

But, regarding the name of the company however, you seem to be misunderstood. Nova is one of the entries in the book 『誰かに教えたくなる社名の由来』

On page 189 you will find the origin of the company name Nova, as was quoted by the MB man himself. Of course, we all know that Nova means new in Latin, but the star is called a Nova because they used to be considered new stars, because they suddenly appeared in the night sky. Only later was it found that they were stars at the end of their life, flaring for one last dying breath - like Sahashi.

Nice ‘editorial’ there Bone. Except that it’s riddled with inaccuracies. Just where the **** do you get your ‘facts’, and who is ‘we’?

First of all, Sahashi is on record as saying the name of the company comes from the Latin word for ‘new’, although your cosmic explosion analogy is apropos, if exaggerated.

There were never “1000+” NOVA branches… that was Sahashi’s stated goal, but they he only got about 900, which disintegrated by the end of September to 600 or less, and the closures were continuing right up to October 26th.

I’ve been disgusted by the pathetic 可哀相外国人講師 (poor, poor gaijin senseis) stories all over the news for the past two weeks, but your ‘poor Sahashi’ crap just takes the cake! The Japanese staff haven’t been paid anything for over two months, and never received their summer bonus (actually, a percentage of their monthly salary held ransom) at all. Your “good heart”-guy Sahashi promised staff that their summer bonus would be paid in October. The late salary payments beginning in July that you mention were staff salaries only. Actually, staff salaries were delayed to preserve funds for the instructors’ paydays. The poor ’senseis’ have only been waiting 2 weeks for their missing pay.

Of course, the students (NOVA’s customers… remember them?) are the main victims in this whole debacle… their money is long gone. At the moment, some of the companies interested in ’sponsoring’ NOVA’s recovery are attracted by the chance to buy NOVA students’ debt.

The school closures were never about a shortage of instructors. That idea is laughable.

The intensive two-new-branches-per-day expansion that Sahashi inaugurated last year relied on a hiring freeze for its subsidization. NOVA stopped hiring instructors and froze scheduled overtime while simultaneously attempting a huge expansion! Does that sound like a person with a ‘good heart’ who’s interested in providing prepaid lessons to students? At least when Starbuck’s puts shops across the street from each other, they hire enough baristas for both locations. NOVA just spread their already low numbers thinner and thinner, while continuing to sell more and more lessons that it never intended to provide. THAT was Sahashi’s business model.

The branch closures were due to one reason, and one reason only: NOVA couldn’t pay the rent anymore on most, if not all, of its 駅前 locations. Anywhere you go in Japan, the highest real estate and rental prices are in or around train stations, yet NOVA, under the dictatorial rule of Sahashi, despite two consecutive years of huge losses, continued to open and maintain ekimae KIDS branches that were only open two days per week, while paying (or not) rent by the month. The branches that were closed were not the non-performers. The branches that closed in September conveniently had leases that ran out in September. The silly two-day/week branches stayed open to the bitter end, even while established, busy branches with large numbers of students, instructors, and staff shut down.

Oh, and by the way:

Sahashi was given ample opportunity to meet with his board of directors, but after months of enduring his stalling and secret maneuvering, and with the avalanche of resignations by top managers of all sections (sorry… Quality Controls Groups), and the resignations of many of the top gaijin managers, they were forced to mutiny just to cover their own rear-ends, which Sahashi would have gleefully burned to save his own.

Sahashi established NOVA in 1981.

He is married.

He only changed the 読み (pronunciation) of his surname, not the 漢字 (kanji characters), which remain unchanged, and still translate as ‘monkey’ and ‘bridge’. This change apparently had nothing to do with the “ribbing from diligent kanji studying foreign teachers who relentlessly called him Monkey-Bridge, or just MB”; it’s doubtful that he’s even aware of it.
Sahashi has nearly ZERO contact with the branch employees of NOVA, aside from posing for the Japanese recruits’ training graduation photos, and the managers’ meetings that are held several times yearly (for which he is habitually hours late), and the year-end ‘party’ which branch staff must attend after cleaning the school on the day after the last lesson day in December. The word is that a fortune-teller recommended the change in pronunciation as being more fortuitous.

Hmmm… Sahashi seems to be just as inept at picking good fortune-tellers as he is at choosing legal representation, financial advisors, corporate investors, and interior decorators.

The only link that gives truly factual, up-to-date information about what’s happening with NOVA now is the front page of the company’s own website, nova.ne.jp which the government-appointed trustees who are in control of NOVA are using to make their progress public. Please note that this information is not coming from NOVA executives or employees, but from lawyers who are responsible for NOVA’s government-controlled corporate restructuring and/or bankruptcy.

You do no service to your readers by contributing to the pile of misinformation that is already redundant on the internet, both in English and 日本語.

http://www.nova.ne.jp/ginganet/index.html

Now I see how this guy got onto the top 10 tax payers list…