What is Doujin?
In Japan, Doujin usually describes activities which individuals with same interest celebration and create items like comics(Manga), novels, games as well as other goods. They are not necessary professional artists or writers. Most of doujin items are produced by armatures as a hobby and quite often provided by their own expense.

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

You’ll find a huge selection of Doujin Circles in Japan. Most of the Doujin goods are publicized by Circle rather than by individual.

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

Good reputation for Doujin

Concept of “Doujin” was initially acknowledged when Shotaro Ishinomori gathered artist friends and established “East Japan Comic Society” to share a corroboration magazine “Manga-Shonen”. Then Doujin Circle activities gradually did start to prosper from the “reader’s communication page” on the magazine “COM” (Now discontinued), that has been first publicized in 1967. During those times, self publication was costing a lot, thus one bundled comics were passed derived from one of Circle member to an alternative, by having their pages and circulating among the creators for viewing.

The realm of “Doujin” has exploded because variety of participating creators increased. Circles started to form within institutions for example high schools and universities. Therefore, Circles could actually receive funds off their institution, as a result it made it viable for their Doujinshi being printed. (Offset Print)

Individual Doujin activities began to increase in the event the animation series, “Gatcha-Man” was televised around 1972. Yet it had been still not a widely spread trend and just small group of Circles were gathering and exchanging their works. Doujin community used to be a closed realm.

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

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

After a certain Doujinshi gains its popularity, the amount of creators who participate for the Circle increases. Therefore, they can afford higher priced printing method like offset. Therefore that made the caliber of such Doujinshi better.
Doujin Circles which was lacking enough financial resource would publish their Doujinshi by copying or making of a printer. Before, printing was pretty expensive, these days days it has become cheaper.

As much animation became available in the news 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 including “Saint Seiya” (1980) and “Top o Nerae” was a huge hit which raised excitement among Doujin creators.

Around this time, Yaoi Doujinshi did start to get a general acknowledgement as a result of popular anime titles including “Saint Seiya” and “Samurail Trooper”, which featured friendship between men.

Also, “Doujin Software” began to appear around this time because PC was growing a trendy domestic tool. Much like “Comiket”, an event “Pasoket” was formed 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 run on these platforms. Those types of, X68000 especially attracted many core-users for the high machine spec which causing many sophisticated Doujin software titles to become born.

Within the 90th, a title for example “Sailor Moon” has been a huge hit among kid and also 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 were created away from Sailor Moon.

In the mid 90th, Game themed Doujinshi began to gained popularity. Most of them 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 many Doujin creators started to target Bisyoujyo Game because of its demand and popularity.

Around this time, lawsuits about copyright issue between commercial and Doujin publication stared to go up. Creating Doujinshi away from copyrighted characters was considered legal because it took it’s origin from the notion that these Doujinshi are intended for non-commercial purpose, but also for leisure. There have been no licensing fee and business agreement relating to the copyright holder and Doujin creator. As a result, copyright holder was not able to restrict copyrighted character themed Doujinshi although he did not like how these characters were presented on these Doujinshi. Even if this is a huge continuous problematic issue in the industry and it is being declared that there needs to be some type of law setting a guide. (Text by: Torakichi Hayama)

Group 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 it is called Boy’s love.

Yuri
Doujin work showcasing love or sex between female. This word was born as a possible the complete “Bara” (Rose) featuring male homosexuality. The word “Yuri” was said to be comes from a show called “Yuri-zoku series” by “Nikkatu Roman Porn”.

Loli-Con
Abbreviation for Lolita Complex. Doujin works featuring Child Pornography. It turned out declared the phrase was originated from a novel “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 illegal by CPPA (Child Pornography Prevention Act). Must be treated to understand the law carefully if you are intending to create Loli-con themed Doujinshi. This law refers to virtual characters at the same time.

Shota-Con
Doujin work which features underage boy relationship. The phrase originated 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 quite just like Neko (Cat) and act like it. On Doujinshi, these characters might talk like “~meow” at the conclusion of their words.

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

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