What’s Doujin?
In Japan, Doujin usually identifies activities which people with same interest gather and build such things as comics(Manga), novels, games along with other goods. These people are not required professional artists or writers. Lots of doujin products are developed by armatures as a hobby and sometimes provided by their particular expense.

Group formed by individuals 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 programs are often published by Circle.

There are numerous Doujin Circles in Japan. Most of the Doujin products are publicized by Circle instead of individual.

Doujin Circle and community has become Japan’s huge art culture and manga industry’s phenomenon.

Reputation Doujin

Concise explaination “Doujin” was 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 did start to prosper with the “reader’s communication page” on the magazine “COM” (Now discontinued), which was first publicized in 1967. In those days, self publication was costing a lot, thus one bundled comics were passed from Circle member to an alternative, with the help of their pages and circulating one of many creators for viewing.

The world of “Doujin” has exploded because amount 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 other institution, as a result it gave the chance for his or her Doujinshi to become printed. (Offset Print)

Individual Doujin activities begun to increase if the animation series, “Gatcha-Man” was televised around 1972. Yet it was still not a regularly found trend and only small number of of Circles were gathering and exchanging their works. Doujin community had been a closed realm.

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

At beginning, a lot of the Doujinshi were featuring animation parody, however gradually gained more erotic components which may have made an erotic Doujinshi a best selling theme.

Once a certain Doujinshi gains its popularity, the quantity of creators who participate for the Circle increases. Therefore, they’re able to afford more expensive printing method such as offset. As a result that made the standard of such Doujinshi better.
Doujin Circles which was lacking enough financial resource would publish their Doujinshi by copying or printing out of a printer. During the past, printing was pretty expensive, the good news is days it is now cheaper.

As much animation arrived on the scene on TV inside 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 for example “Saint Seiya” (1980) and “Top o Nerae” has been a huge hit which raised excitement among Doujin creators.

Around this time, Yaoi Doujinshi began to obtain a general acknowledgement because of popular anime titles like “Saint Seiya” and “Samurail Trooper”, which featured friendship between men.

Also, “Doujin Software” begun to appear around this time because PC was growing a popular domestic tool. Much like “Comiket”, a meeting “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 made to operate on these platforms. Some of those, X68000 especially attracted many core-users due to the high machine spec which resulting in many sophisticated Doujin software titles being born.

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

From the mid 90th, Game themed Doujinshi did start to gain 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 risen and lots of Doujin creators begun to focus 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 away from copyrighted characters was considered legal as it took it’s origin from the idea that these Doujinshi were created for non-commercial purpose, but for leisure. There are no licensing fee and business agreement relating to the copyright holder and Doujin creator. Consequently, copyright holder was not capable to restrict copyrighted character themed Doujinshi even though he did not like how these characters were presented on these Doujinshi. Of course this is a huge continuous problematic issue in the industry and it’s also being said that there must be some sort of law to set a regulation. (Text by: Torakichi Hayama)

Class of Doujin

Original
Doujin works which all story and characters were originally produced 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 method . Boy’s love.

Yuri
Doujin work offering love or sex between female. This word was given birth to as an the complete opposite of “Bara” (Rose) featuring male homosexuality. The phrase “Yuri” was said to be originated from a movie called “Yuri-zoku series” by “Nikkatu Roman Porn”.

Loli-Con
Abbreviation for Lolita Complex. Doujin works featuring Child Pornography. It was declared the phrase was comes from the sunday paper “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov, a mid-life man loving an underage girl. **In the usa, Loli-con that presents child obscenity and pornography is unlawful by CPPA (Child Pornography Prevention Act). Must be treated to know what the law states carefully if you are intending to write down Loli-con themed Doujinshi. This law refers to virtual characters as well.

Shota-Con
Doujin work which features underage boy love affair. The phrase descends 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, most of the main Neko-Mimi characters are female. Their personality is extremely just like Neko (Cat) and become it. On Doujinshi, these characters might talk like “~meow” at the conclusion of their words.

Kemono
Not the same as Neko-Mimi, however, this Doujin work features human looking character with partially animal-like.

For details about Dojin please visit internet page: read here.