(Nearly) All I Know about Doujinshi and (Some) Related Nonsense, or Just Read Canned Dogs
January 20th, 2009
Just a random list. Maybe you can help me by adding or correcting it. And maybe I can help you by telling you otherwise or something you didn’t know. The list is unordered, just numbered for ease of reference.
- Generally understood, doujinshi is comic, based on some previously existing work (for short, I’ll call such things IP), done not by the creator. Basically, fan fiction but in comic form. The term doujin also applies to non-comic fan creations. These terms have over time included amateur work that are original as well, as well certain professionally produced products that market to the same crowd.
- It’s not all porn. In fact I think there are still more non-porn doujinshi out there than adult-content ones, but that’s just what I think. What is a fact is that at Comiket, there are more non-porn doujinshi titles than porn ones. And the fact that I say this does imply there is some kind of (mis)conception about doujinshi and porn.
- It’s done by concerned fans. It’s also done by wannabes. And pros. Technically anyone can make it, even the original creators(!). Anyone. Period.
- It’s printed on paper, but sometimes also pressed on a CD or DVD or otherwise digitally stored. Other times it could be in the form of a merchandise. It could be a web comic. It could be many things.
- It could be so many things, that it could be fan fiction, strategy guides, essays about the IP, remixed music, original music inspired by the IP, cross-over games, episode guides, scripts for anime based on IP, anime based on IP, even mostly original things, and much more!
- It’s been used as a form of promotion. Like viral marketing. Both for IP and for brand recognition (e.g. identity of illustrators). It could be a part of a larger business strategy. Sometimes it can also be used to make money directly when sold through certain stores (in this case, it’s more like direct publishing).
- Sometimes “doujinshi” are sold as licensed goods, in the form of fan comic or anthology. Technically this is where it stops being doujinshi. For example, these. And even maybe this. But you know this is really just the same stuff for these artists anyways no matter how they sell the final product.
- There are events organized around the promotion, trading, distribution and acquisition of doujinshi. Comiket is just the one everyone knows, and there’s a lot more to comiket than I care to learn. It is complex. But that’s not all. Doujinshi are sold, given away, pirated, and otherwise distributed in pretty much any way any good of this kind is sold, given away, pirated and otherwise distributed. So while I might not list everything, there are a lot of cross-over knowledge that applies to doujinshi that could apply to, say, event-license figures or even non-event-license figures (the former can even fall under the doujin category…and maybe the latter). Which is to say, a lot of it revolves around these conventions.
- Production and distribution of doujinshi is often an organized effort by more than one person, but it’s much easier to self-publish in this way than it is … many other ways. Partly because in Japan there are things setup to do this, with services tailored for doujinshi publication. Go watch Comic Party or something. Or Genshiken. Or Doujin Work.
- Or read Wikipedia.
- There is a scene. Like many other aspects of Japan, Japanese doujin things and creators of said things tend to follow various unspoken rules. ZUN’s comments about the Touhou anime actually comes close to nailing down some of the basics. It’s a more liberal interpretation than some, but I think that’s why it nails down some of the basics. It also smells like Creative Commons 3.0, with some major exceptions.
- Doujinshi economics. It’s all Zepy. All the way. To sum up, generally people who make doujinshi don’t make much money, if at all. However the gross volume is large (many circles selling many doujinshi at small quantities), so looking at annual sales volume can be shocking.
- Doujinshi sales is also a very good indicator of IP popularity, however skewed, for high popularity titles. It’s probably good market research data for an area that doesn’t have much data to begin with. Of course, one could also easily say that doujinshi sales is also a poor indicator of popularity to a degree, because you could pull a Type-Moon or a ZUN. 1000 true fans and all.
- For most doujinshi producers, in corollary, the production cycles sync with these doujinshi trade shows as the bulk of titles sell via these venues. But that’s just an observation anyone could make.
- Doujinshi do get copied, reprinted and sold without creator’s consent. By this I mean the original circle that created the doujinshi. Obviously, this is shady. And limited to certain places in the world. Ahem.
- I’ve been mostly talking about how Japan and Japanese people view, consume, make, and otherwise deal with it. Truth is a lot of it also apply to fan works across the globe, at least in essence. The culture, legal limitations, practical limitations and history all vary however. And for that reason I’m going to just limit this post to “doujinshi” as we know it–fan works marketed to Japanese fans.
- The exchange and circulation of doujinshi is also one way where some artists made a break, got the hookups and started their pro career. I wish I have more specifics on this, but it would seem that doujinshi is one active outlet that encourages the mutual contribution of works, varying in commercial viability.
- Uniform, productive contribution by the fan base, centralized for pursual via the ‘net, centralized events (ie. comiket), and major hubs of fan activity (e.g., Akiba)…it’s only possible in a small, wired-up (or wireless), densely populated country like Japan?
- And of course, people outside of Japan buy Japanese doujinshi as well. For the most part this barely registers in the market and can be safely ignored, although it makes you wonder if it has real impact or not on individual doujinshi creators. Small changes in sale can have large impact for small-time creators.
- To make it an even 20, there are non-Japanese people making doujinshi as well, selling it just like everyone else (in Japan). I’m not sure what to say about that besides that’s pretty neat. For now.
I guess this is a good start. Not sure if this is even “nearly” all I know D:
Posted by omo in Conventions and Concerts, English-Language Modern Visual Fandom, The Law, Popular Culture, Modern Visual Culture with 7 comments. Trackback link here.
‘Doujin’ doesn’t mean it’s unofficial, it means that it’s self-published. ‘Amateur’ might be a better description, though it doesn’t quite fit since there are doujins produced by professionals - Tony, for example, is a professional game artist and whatnot, but he releases a doujinshi at every comiket, and they’re always among the most sought-after releases.
In those cases though, they’re produced and sold by those professionals themselves, not going through an official publisher. And sometimes that’s because of legal issues. For example the character artist who did Vandread (can’t recall his name) put out an artbook a while back, and he had to publish it himself (as doujin) because he couldn’t release it through official channels, due to Gonzo owning the Copyright.
Also, re: point 7 - Robot was never doujinshi. It’s an anthology published by a major publisher. Some (a lot) of the artists it’s featured have produced doujinshi, but their included work is original, and created specifically for the anthology. A much better example for 7 would be some of the started-as-doujin-but-got-official-publication games like Tsukihime, Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni or Melty Blood. In Tsukihime’s case it also helped the creators go from being a doujin software circle into an actual professional publisher.
Hmm, I don’t think you understood my #7 then. The items I used as examples are not suppose to be doujinshi, but they are basically functionally doujinshi. Higurashi, Tsukihime, and other original games in general are probably a little too unique/complicated to illustrate point 7 clearly.
I think ‘doujin’ is probably better ‘unofficial’ than ‘amateur’ because, well, they ARE unofficial. The notion is still one that is of derivative work, where as saying it’s amateur is just misleading given many doujinshi look quite professional as an intrinsic matter, and that is something that will vary from piece to piece.
In general, if something that is official goods (eg. bearing official stickers, etc), it is not doujinshi. I think this is fairly clear. It doesn’t really matter who makes Vandred (or whatever) doujinshi, and the matter of “officialness” is generally something legally significant and doujinshi generally sidesteps.
Personally I don’t want to get bogged down with semantics, we probably won’t get far that way. Note that I don’t say it’s official or unofficial, or amateur or not in respect to the product.
Oh right, I got your point backwards. I took what you’ve got there to mean doujin-published work that is subsequently republished professionally. Which is the case for all the things I listed. Do you mean something more like what Type-moon periodically do, where they make professionally-produced art collections and stuff and release them as if they’re doujins (despite that they’re official, licensed products from a professional company)?
Robot still isn’t doujin or even doujin-like though. :P Murata’s concept was to highlight artists’ work by offering them a space where they could contribute whatever they wanted. If anything it frees the artists up from the usual doujin cycle. And you’ll note that almost all the artists involved are professional artists who have properly published work, even if some may also dabble in doujin on the side. It was more giving them a chance to produce published artwork without having to work to an external set of requirements. I guess it’s similar, but not really.
True, which is why I said maybe.
Just to elaborate on point 7, and add to the pool–
I do know some pro creators that have “made it” (the likes of Yoshitoshi ABe, Range Murata, etc.) still do the doujinshi circuit because not only it is something that they have done for years, not only because it markets their names, makes a modest sum, and can be fun in of itself like how some American con goers keep on going to the same anime con year after year, but also because it’s a scene.
I mean, if you’re in for the long haul, you’ll be producing it year after year. And things like ROBOT are an outflow of it. It’s a 100% pro format, so its production is no longer a part of the scene, and it’s just yet another way for people in this craft to do more business. Stuff. The content of ROBOT is similar to a doujinshi, just with much more polish (being pro and all), which is why I mention it. Heck, it’s not even 100% original at times.
I just realized I didn’t answer NegativeZero’s question in his second comment. Which is about point 17. While the transformation of, for example, Type-Moon from an amateur organization to a registered commercial entity is notable, it doesn’t really mean very much besides that a couple guys who make very good stuff can work hard and make a living out of their artistic creations. From hobbies to full-time jobs. There is nothing that is super special about the transformation of an independent game maker to a “non-independent” game maker, if that makes sense to you. It just means they have commercial backing now and not paying out of their own pockets.
The means in which Type-Moon supported their organization and gained popularity is by marketing through the doujinshi scene, true. Which is another story under # 17.
That means maybe I should include “All I know about TOUHOU” in this post?
[…] series has influenced my understanding of how doujin circles work; though, of course, I have learnt MOAR since then. And I think it wouldn’t have enjoyed Genshiken as much if I hadn’t seem […]