What exactly is Doujin?
In Japan, Doujin usually describes activities which individuals with same interest gather and make such things as comics(Manga), novels, games and other goods. This type of person not essential professional artists or writers. Many of doujin products are developed by armatures being a hobby and quite often provided 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 works to the other person. Doujinshi or software program is often published by Circle.
You can find a huge selection of Doujin Circles in Japan. Lots of the Doujin items are publicized by Circle rather than by individual.
Doujin Circle and community is starting to become Japan’s huge art culture and manga industry’s phenomenon.
History of Doujin
Meaning of “Doujin” was first 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 began to prosper with the “reader’s communication page” over a magazine “COM” (Now discontinued), which was first publicized in 1967. At that time, self publication was costing a lot, thus one bundled comics were passed from Circle member to a different, by adding their pages and circulating one of the creators for viewing.
The realm of “Doujin” is growing as the variety of participating creators increased. Circles did start to form within educational facilities like high schools and universities. In that case, Circles could actually receive funds from their institution, thus it made it possible for his or her Doujinshi to be printed. (Offset Print)
Individual Doujin activities started to increase if the animation series, “Gatcha-Man” was televised around 1972. Yet it had been still not just a widely spread trend and just select few of Circles were gathering and exchanging their works. Doujin community used to be a closed realm.
Comic Market located in 1975 has contributed quite a lot for your general acknowledgement of Doujin culture. It begun with 32 Circles, and 700 participants, forming a location to change and then sell one another’s Doujin art works. The Comic Market gradually became as being a major Doujin event from year to year.
At beginning, many of the Doujinshi were featuring animation parody, but gradually gained more erotic components that 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 more costly printing method for example offset. Consequently that made the caliber of such Doujinshi better.
Doujin Circles which did not have enough financial resource would publish their Doujinshi by copying or making of the printer. Before, printing was pretty expensive, the good news is days it has become cheaper.
As numerous animation arrived in the media 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). Inside 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 started to obtain a general acknowledgement because of popular anime titles for example “Saint Seiya” and “Samurail Trooper”, which featured friendship between men.
Also, “Doujin Software” did start to appear around this time because PC was starting to become a popular domestic tool. Much like “Comiket”, a conference “Pasoket” was formed as being a destination 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 operate on these platforms. The type of, X68000 especially attracted many core-users for the high machine spec which resulting in many sophisticated Doujin software titles being born.
From the 90th, a title for example “Sailor Moon” was a huge hit among kid and in many cases adult. “Sailor Moon” became also 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 begun to recognition. Most 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 grown and several Doujin creators did start to target Bisyoujyo Game for the demand and popularity.
During this time period, lawsuits about copyright issue between commercial and Doujin publication stared to go up. Creating Doujinshi beyond copyrighted characters was considered legal since it was based on the concept that these Doujinshi are created for non-commercial purpose, however for leisure. There have been no licensing fee and business agreement involving the copyright holder and Doujin creator. As a result, copyright holder has not been in a position to restrict copyrighted character themed Doujinshi even though he didn’t like how these characters were presented on these Doujinshi. Even though this is a continuous problematic trouble in the industry in fact it is being said that there must be some form of law to put a rule. (Text by: Torakichi Hayama)
Class of Doujin
Original
Doujin works which all story and characters were originally created by the creator.
Ani-Paro
Anime Parody. Featuring already existed anime characters or anime theme.
Yaoi
Doujin work which features love or sex between male. Sometime it is called Boy’s love.
Yuri
Doujin work offering love or sex between female. This word came to be just as one complete opposite of “Bara” (Rose) featuring male homosexuality. The term “Yuri” was considered to be originated in a movie called “Yuri-zoku series” by “Nikkatu Roman Porn”.
Loli-Con
Abbreviation for Lolita Complex. Doujin works featuring Child Pornography. It absolutely was declared that the word was originated in a singular “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). You should be aware to comprehend the law carefully if you are planning to publish Loli-con themed Doujinshi. This law refers to virtual characters at the same time.
Shota-Con
Doujin work offering underage boy romance. The term originated from a character named Shota Kaneda from “Taiyou no Shisya Tetsujin 28 Gou”.
Neko-Mimi
Doujin work showcasing female characters with cat ears. Basically, a lot of the main Neko-Mimi characters are female. Their personality is very similar to Neko (Cat) and become it. On Doujinshi, these characters might talk like “~meow” at the end of their words.
Kemono
Distinctive from Neko-Mimi, but this Doujin work features human looking character with partially animal-like.
To read more about Dojin 18 check out this popular internet page.