What’s Doujin?
In Japan, Doujin usually refers to activities which people with same interest meet up and build such things as comics(Manga), novels, games and also other goods. These people are not required professional artists or writers. Most of doujin items are manufactured by armatures being a hobby and frequently created by their own expense.
Group formed by people with common Doujin theme can often be called “Circle”. Within Circle, creators exchange their ideas and show functions one another. Doujinshi or software packages are often published by Circle.
You’ll find a huge selection of Doujin Circles in Japan. Lots of the Doujin items are publicized by Circle instead of individual.
Doujin Circle and community is becoming Japan’s huge art culture and manga industry’s phenomenon.
Good reputation for Doujin
Meaning of “Doujin” was initially acknowledged when Shotaro Ishinomori gathered artist friends and established “East Japan Comic Society” to write a corroboration magazine “Manga-Shonen”. Then Doujin Circle activities gradually begun to prosper over the “reader’s communication page” with a magazine “COM” (Now discontinued), which has been first publicized in 1967. At that time, self publication was costing a lot of money, thus one bundled comics were passed from Circle member to another, by having their pages and circulating among the creators for viewing.
The realm of “Doujin” has exploded because the variety of participating creators increased. Circles began to form within educational facilities for example high schools and universities. If so, Circles were able to receive funds from other institution, as a result it gave the chance for Doujinshi to be printed. (Offset Print)
Individual Doujin activities started to increase in the event the animation series, “Gatcha-Man” was televised around 1972. Yet it had been still not only a regularly found 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 whole lot for the general acknowledgement of Doujin culture. It begun with 32 Circles, and 700 participants, forming a place to switch then sell each other’s Doujin artworks. The Comic Market gradually became like a major Doujin event from year upon year.
At beginning, many of the Doujinshi were featuring animation parody, then again gradually gained more erotic components which have made an erotic Doujinshi a best selling theme.
When a certain Doujinshi gains its popularity, the quantity of creators who participate towards the Circle increases. Therefore, they could afford higher priced printing method including offset. Because of this that made the quality of such Doujinshi better.
Doujin Circles which was without enough financial resource would publish their Doujinshi by copying or printing out of the printer. In the past, printing was pretty expensive, these days days it is cheaper.
As many animation became available in the news from the 80th, more Doujinshi featured such anime themed Parody, including Yaoi and erotic Doujinshi. Many 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 such as “Saint Seiya” (1980) and “Top o Nerae” has been a huge hit which raised excitement among Doujin creators.
During this time period, Yaoi Doujinshi began to obtain a general acknowledgement as a consequence of popular anime titles like “Saint Seiya” and “Samurail Trooper”, which featured friendship between men.
Also, “Doujin Software” started to appear around this time because PC was starting to become a trendy domestic tool. Comparable to “Comiket”, a meeting “Pasoket” was formed as 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 run on these platforms. The type of, X68000 especially attracted many core-users because of its high machine spec which resulting in many sophisticated Doujin software titles to get born.
From the 90th, a title for example “Sailor Moon” had been a huge hit among kid as well as 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 were made away from Sailor Moon.
Within the mid 90th, Game themed Doujinshi began to gained popularity. Many of them were featuring an erotic scene and Yaoi theme of in-game characters. Number of game company that featured “Bisyoujyo Game” (Pretty Girl’s Game) has expanded and lots of Doujin creators begun to concentrate on Bisyoujyo Game for the demand and popularity.
During this time period, lawsuits about copyright issue between commercial and Doujin publication stared to increase. Creating Doujinshi beyond copyrighted characters was considered legal because it was based on the notion that these Doujinshi are intended for non-commercial purpose, but for leisure. There are no licensing fee and business agreement between your copyright holder and Doujin creator. As a result, copyright holder was not capable of restrict copyrighted character themed Doujinshi although he would not like how these characters were presented on these Doujinshi. Even though this has been a continuous problematic trouble in the industry in fact it is being declared that there ought to be some sort of law setting a guide. (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 method . Boy’s love.
Yuri
Doujin work featuring love or sex between female. This word was created as an opposite of “Bara” (Rose) which features male homosexuality. The term “Yuri” was considered to be comes from a film called “Yuri-zoku series” by “Nikkatu Roman Porn”.
Loli-Con
Abbreviation for Lolita Complex. Doujin works featuring Child Pornography. It had been declared that the phrase was originated in the sunday paper “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov, a middle age man loving an underage girl. **In the United States, Loli-con that presents child obscenity and pornography is against the law by CPPA (Child Pornography Prevention Act). Please be aware to know what the law states carefully should you be considering to write Loli-con themed Doujinshi. This law applies to virtual characters too.
Shota-Con
Doujin work which features underage boy relationship. The term 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, a lot of the main Neko-Mimi characters are female. Their personality is extremely much like Neko (Cat) and act like it. On Doujinshi, these characters might talk like “~meow” at the conclusion of their words.
Kemono
Completely different from Neko-Mimi, however this Doujin work features human looking character with partially animal-like.
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