What exactly is Doujin?
In Japan, Doujin usually describes activities which individuals with same interest get together and create things such as comics(Manga), novels, games as well as other goods. This type of person not required professional artists or writers. A lot of doujin merchandise is produced by armatures as being a hobby and often provided by their unique expense.
Group formed by people with common Doujin theme is frequently called “Circle”. Within Circle, creators exchange their ideas and show activly works to one another. Doujinshi or software packages are often provided by Circle.
There are numerous Doujin Circles in Japan. Many of the Doujin items are publicized by Circle instead of individual.
Doujin Circle and community is starting to become Japan’s huge art culture and manga industry’s phenomenon.
Good Doujin
Concise explaination “Doujin” was initially acknowledged when Shotaro Ishinomori gathered artist friends and established “East Japan Comic Society” to publish a corroboration magazine “Manga-Shonen”. Then Doujin Circle activities gradually started to prosper over the “reader’s communication page” over a magazine “COM” (Now discontinued), which was first publicized in 1967. During those times, self publication was costing a lot of money, thus one bundled comics were passed from Circle member to a new, with the addition of their pages and circulating on the list of creators for viewing.
The realm of “Doujin” has grown since the variety of participating creators increased. Circles began to form within institutions such as high schools and universities. In that case, Circles had the ability to receive funds off their institution, thus it gave the chance for their Doujinshi being printed. (Offset Print)
Individual Doujin activities did start to increase once the animation series, “Gatcha-Man” was televised around 1972. Yet it absolutely was still not really a widely spread trend and only small selection of of Circles were gathering and exchanging their works. Doujin community was still a closed realm.
Comic Market held in 1975 has contributed a good deal for the general acknowledgement of Doujin culture. It begun with 32 Circles, and 700 participants, forming a spot to switch and then sell each other’s Doujin art works. The Comic Market gradually became being a major Doujin event from year to year.
At beginning, most of the Doujinshi were featuring animation parody, but then gradually gained more erotic components who have made an erotic Doujinshi an increasingly popular theme.
Each certain Doujinshi gains its popularity, the volume of creators who participate to the Circle increases. Therefore, they can afford higher priced printing method such as offset. Therefore that made the quality of such Doujinshi better.
Doujin Circles which did not have enough financial resource would publish their Doujinshi by copying or printing out of the printer. During the past, printing was pretty expensive, these days days it is cheaper.
Numerous animation arrived on the scene on television from the 80th, more Doujinshi featured such anime themed Parody, including Yaoi and erotic Doujinshi. A few of the popular titles featured by Doujin creators then were: “Gundum” (1981), “Urusei-Yatsura – Only You” (1983), “Macross – Remember Love” (1984). Within the late 80th, titles like “Saint Seiya” (1980) and “Top o Nerae” has been a huge hit which raised excitement among Doujin creators.
During this time period, Yaoi Doujinshi begun to get a general acknowledgement as a result of popular anime titles for example “Saint Seiya” and “Samurail Trooper”, which featured friendship between men.
Also, “Doujin Software” begun to appear around this time because PC was starting to become a well known domestic tool. Comparable to “Comiket”, a celebration “Pasoket” was formed as being a spot 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 built to operate on these platforms. Some of those, X68000 especially attracted many core-users for the high machine spec which producing many sophisticated Doujin software titles to be born.
Within the 90th, a title including “Sailor Moon” was a huge hit among kid and also adult. “Sailor Moon” became and a popular theme among Doujin creators. Since characters from “Sailor moon” were “Bisyoujyo Character” (Pretty Girl Character), many erotic and lesbian themed Doujinshi were created beyond Sailor Moon.
Within the mid 90th, Game themed Doujinshi did start to recognition. Many were featuring an erotic scene and Yaoi theme of in-game characters. Amount of game company that featured “Bisyoujyo Game” (Pretty Girl’s Game) has grown and several Doujin creators began to focus on Bisyoujyo Game due to its demand and popularity.
During this time period, lawsuits about copyright issue between commercial and Doujin publication stared to rise. Creating Doujinshi beyond copyrighted characters was considered legal since it scaled like the notion that these Doujinshi were created for non-commercial purpose, however for leisure. There was no licensing fee and business agreement between your copyright holder and Doujin creator. Consequently, copyright holder has not been able to restrict copyrighted character themed Doujinshi though he did not like how these characters were presented on these Doujinshi. Of course this is a continuous problematic trouble in the industry in fact it is being said that there needs to be some kind of law setting a regulation. (Text by: Torakichi Hayama)
Category of Doujin
Original
Doujin works which all story and characters were originally developed 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 stage system Boy’s love.
Yuri
Doujin work featuring love or sex between female. This word was created being an opposite of “Bara” (Rose) showcasing male homosexuality. The definition of “Yuri” was considered to be comes from a movie called “Yuri-zoku series” by “Nikkatu Roman Porn”.
Loli-Con
Abbreviation for Lolita Complex. Doujin works featuring Child Pornography. It turned out declared that the phrase was comes from a manuscript “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov, a middle age man loving an underage girl. **In america, Loli-con that presents child obscenity and pornography is prohibited by CPPA (Child Pornography Prevention Act). Please be aware to understand regulations carefully if you’re planning to publish Loli-con themed Doujinshi. This law applies to virtual characters as well.
Shota-Con
Doujin work showcasing underage boy relationship. The phrase comes from a personality named Shota Kaneda from “Taiyou no Shisya Tetsujin 28 Gou”.
Neko-Mimi
Doujin work featuring female characters with cat ears. Basically, the majority of the main Neko-Mimi characters are female. Their personality is very similar to Neko (Cat) and work like it. On Doujinshi, these characters might talk like “~meow” following their words.
Kemono
Different from Neko-Mimi, however Doujin work features human looking character with partially animal-like.
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