What Is Considered Doujin? Let’s Get To Learn About Doujin!

What exactly is Doujin?
In Japan, Doujin usually refers to activities which people with same interest get together and create things such as comics(Manga), novels, games and also other goods. These people are not required professional artists or writers. Most of doujin merchandise is created by armatures like a hobby and sometimes published by their particular expense.

Group formed by individuals with common Doujin theme is often called “Circle”. Within Circle, creators exchange their ideas and show works to each other. Doujinshi or software packages are often provided by Circle.

You will find numerous Doujin Circles in Japan. A lot of the Doujin products are publicized by Circle rather than by individual.

Doujin Circle and community is becoming Japan’s huge art culture and manga industry’s phenomenon.

Good reputation for Doujin

Concise explaination “Doujin” was initially acknowledged when Shotaro Ishinomori gathered artist friends and established “East Japan Comic Society” to create a corroboration magazine “Manga-Shonen”. Then Doujin Circle activities gradually did start to prosper with the “reader’s communication page” with a magazine “COM” (Now discontinued), that was first publicized in 1967. At that time, self publication was costing a king’s ransom, thus one bundled comics were passed from one Circle member to an alternative, with the help of their pages and circulating one of many creators for viewing.

The world of “Doujin” has grown as the variety of participating creators increased. Circles began to form within universities such as high schools and universities. If so, Circles could receive funds from other institution, thus it gave the chance because of their Doujinshi to be printed. (Offset Print)

Individual Doujin activities started to increase when the animation series, “Gatcha-Man” was televised around 1972. Yet it was still not really a widely spread trend simply small group of Circles were gathering and exchanging their works. Doujin community was still being a closed realm.

Comic Market located in 1975 has contributed a good deal to the general acknowledgement of Doujin culture. It begun with 32 Circles, and 700 participants, forming a spot to exchange and then sell on one another’s Doujin art works. The Comic Market gradually became being a major Doujin event from year upon year.

At beginning, a lot of the Doujinshi were featuring animation parody, then again gradually gained more erotic components which have made an erotic Doujinshi a very popular theme.

After a certain Doujinshi gains its popularity, the number of creators who participate to the Circle increases. Therefore, they can afford costlier printing method like offset. Therefore that made the standard of such Doujinshi better.
Doujin Circles which did not have enough financial resource would publish their Doujinshi by copying or making of a printer. In the past, printing was pretty expensive, these days days it is now cheaper.

As much animation became available in the news inside the 80th, more Doujinshi featured such anime themed Parody, including Yaoi and erotic Doujinshi. Some of the popular titles featured by Doujin creators then were: “Gundum” (1981), “Urusei-Yatsura – Only You” (1983), “Macross – Remember Love” (1984). Inside the late 80th, titles including “Saint Seiya” (1980) and “Top o Nerae” was a huge hit which raised excitement among Doujin creators.

During this time period, Yaoi Doujinshi started to buy a general acknowledgement as a result of popular anime titles including “Saint Seiya” and “Samurail Trooper”, which featured friendship between men.

Also, “Doujin Software” did start to appear around this time because PC was growing a popular domestic tool. Similar to “Comiket”, a meeting “Pasoket” was formed like a place to sell and exchange PC Doujin software. NEC’s PC-9801 series, Fujitsu’s FM-TOWNS and Sharp’s X68000 were popular hardware, thus Doujin software and CG were mainly designed to run on these platforms. The type of, X68000 especially attracted many core-users due to its high machine spec which causing many sophisticated Doujin software titles to get born.

In the 90th, a title like “Sailor Moon” had been a huge hit among kid and even adult. “Sailor Moon” became additionally a popular theme among Doujin creators. Since characters from “Sailor moon” were “Bisyoujyo Character” (Pretty Girl Character), many erotic and lesbian themed Doujinshi are intended away from Sailor Moon.

Within the mid 90th, Game themed Doujinshi began to gain popularity. Many were featuring an erotic scene and Yaoi theme of in-game characters. Quantity of game company that featured “Bisyoujyo Game” (Pretty Girl’s Game) has expanded and several Doujin creators started to focus on Bisyoujyo Game because of its demand and recognition.

Around this time, lawsuits about copyright issue between commercial and Doujin publication stared to rise. Creating Doujinshi out of copyrighted characters was considered legal since it took it’s origin from the concept that these Doujinshi were made for non-commercial purpose, but also for leisure. There were no licensing fee and business agreement between the copyright holder and Doujin creator. Therefore, copyright holder has not been capable of restrict copyrighted character themed Doujinshi despite the fact that he failed to like how these characters were presented on these Doujinshi. Of course this has been a continuous problematic issue in the industry and it’s also being declared that there should be some sort of law to set a rule. (Text by: Torakichi Hayama)

Group of Doujin

Original
Doujin works which all story and characters were originally manufactured by the creator.

Ani-Paro
Anime Parody. Featuring already existed anime characters or anime theme.

Yaoi
Doujin work showcasing love or sex between male. Sometime it is called Boy’s love.

Yuri
Doujin work offering love or sex between female. This word was created as an opposite of “Bara” (Rose) offering male homosexuality. The word “Yuri” was reported to be originated from a film called “Yuri-zoku series” by “Nikkatu Roman Porn”.

Loli-Con
Abbreviation for Lolita Complex. Doujin works featuring Child Pornography. It was declared the term was originated in a manuscript “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov, a middle age man loving an underage girl. **In the usa, Loli-con that presents child obscenity and pornography is unlawful by CPPA (Child Pornography Prevention Act). Take note to be aware of what the law states carefully should you be considering to create Loli-con themed Doujinshi. This law refers to virtual characters at the same time.

Shota-Con
Doujin work which features underage boy romance. The phrase originated from a personality named Shota Kaneda from “Taiyou no Shisya Tetsujin 28 Gou”.

Neko-Mimi
Doujin work which features female characters with cat ears. Basically, the majority of the main Neko-Mimi characters are female. Their personality is very just like Neko (Cat) and act like it. On Doujinshi, these characters might talk like “~meow” at the end of their words.

Kemono
Different from Neko-Mimi, but this Doujin work features human looking character with partially animal-like.

Check out about Doujin view this popular internet page.