What the heck is a doujinshi? Or dojinshi as it's sometimes spelled in English?
Doujinshi are, in a very simple explanation, fan works of art. They are normally manga (comics) drawn by the fans, but some items produced by the fans, such as shitajiki (pencil boards) or lami cards, may be referred to as 'Doujinshi shitajiki' or 'doujinshi lami' as well as a shorthand way of saying 'fan-produced.' Doujinshi in this article will refer to manga only.
There is a wide spectrum of doujinshi in more than one way.
First, there is a wide difference in skill levels in writing and drawing. Anyone can create a doujinshi, from the neighbors' twelve year old daughter to your sixty year old aunt, and that includes anyone with a professional art degree, a degree in writing, or a box of crayons and a piece of paper. Happily, the majority of artist/authors fall into a nice safe level of competency in both.
There is also a wide difference in genres - doujinshi cover as many genres as professionally issued manga or anime, from cowboy romances to science fiction war dramas to hard-boiled fantasy detective stories. Not that the genres have to be all mixed up of course, you could just as easily come across straight 'hard' science fiction or classic RPG fantasy.
Speaking of hard (oh, I should rethink that segue), a wide range of age interests are written for as well, but most doujinshi are done by people who are young adults and some by older artist/authors, so a good percentage of doujinshi are adult in nature, or even completely yaoi/hentai/ecchi or 'adult' as the term is used in 'adult bookstores.' There is a healthy percentage of fun non-sexual stories, however - but if you're looking for one it is wise to double-check that you haven't picked up the other.
Doujinshi also cover a range from stories involving only favorite existing anime or video game characters in their normal roles in their normal universe to stories in which these characters are placed in unusual situations, or stories that are about unknown characters invented by the artist/author.
One cousin of doujinshi is the 'FanFic' or fan fiction, which is normally written about existing characters of interest to fans, but doujinshi add the dimension of visual artwork. There's a definite copyright issue here: Some doujinshi may be protected in the US under copyright parody laws; some may be produced and sold in Japan under one-day or one-weekend event auspices where companies waive copyright concerns; and some may be produced for titles for which the companies keep a lenient policy regarding doujinshi as it increases their fan base (an approach they definitely do not take in regard to other merchandise or video licensing!). Also, many established and respected industry artists began their careers producing doujinshi. Some doujin artists may be discovered and referred for professional work, which makes the relationship between the industry and fan artists much closer than what would be a more litigious relationship in the US. What might otherwise be clear and straightforward copyright violation is thereby clouded by differences in international copyrights, event exceptions, and Japanese cultural and business norms. So while bootleg merchandise and pirated tapes which can be identified in most cases with only minimal training and experience, only an expert in copyright law, in which events have had exceptions to allow sales, and in which companies allow or even encourage doujinshi work on their titles, would be able to definitively identify doujinshi titles that are infringing items when they include previously existing characters and worlds. On the plus side, a great deal of creative work and effort goes into any doujinshi, which helps to differentiate them from the pirated items which have been stolen and copied from creators, but there is still a grey haze around doujinshi that use previous creators' work as a basis. Original doujinshi creations are free of that concern. By the time you're on the completely self-created, high quality end of these spectra in whatever genre, there's little difference between a doujinshi and a professional published work except for the method of self-publishing.
Doujinshi may be both written and drawn by one artist/author performing both roles, written by teams working on one story, or by 'doujinshi circles,' larger groups of people working together to put out one book, which may include many different stories by the different artist and authors involved. Doujinshi are not normally works of great length (it would become much more bulky and difficult to bind) but are slim volumes of perhaps 20 to 48 pages. Stories are normally self-contained; readers aren't expected to try to track down Volume 2 to find out what happened.
Why bother writing or reading them? Because they're a great outlet for or source for (depending on whether you're writing them or reading them) stories. Readers can often find new and unusual or beautiful works, or just ones that star their favorite characters in a brand new tale. In the case of unknown series or ones that were cancelled after a brief time, that can mean really precious additional artwork and story development. I wish I could find Mermanoid doujinshi, for instance, as the series was cancelled after only a few months in a very bad time slot, but the artwork is gorgeous. Artist/authors have an outlet for their creativity, and many have high skill levels in story telling, art style, or both, based on years of practice.
There are a few additional notes of interest in regard to doujinshi. The binding is typically much higher quality than in US comics - it's higher even than that of graphic novels here, print quality is high and the paper is far higher quality than any used to release comics in the US. Durable stuff, it's made to last, unlike the disposable monthly comic magazines which might melt in a rainstorm.
Doujinshi have not caught on widely in the US, either in creation or in circulation. The market for comics is much smaller in the US than in Japan to begin with due to the cultural stigma of 'kid's stuff' they bear here, while in Japan anyone and everyone can freely read and enjoy comics on any subject. Doujinshi fan Jason Thompson, who hosted a doujinshi panel at Fanime in California, notes that a biweekly circulation in the hundreds of thousands is not unusual for a normal title in Japan. The market for doujinshi in the US, as specialized items, is naturally even smaller. In practice, doujinshi artists in the US are relegated to self-publishing, which is more difficult here than in Japan as there are not many small publishing/copy shops which are willing to dive into this odd sort of work at low prices. Since comics in America sell in low volume for low prices, the market doesn't support even great efforts very well. There are a few American independent comic groups which have made efforts to produce comics by new artists, although not in the higher quality doujinshi style printing, including Antarctic Press and Radio Comics. Several people I spoke to regarding US companies noted that fairly low per page rates or cashflow issues seem to underline the real hardships faced by plucky small press comics companies and the artist/authors who write for them (next on Jerry Springer, plucky small press companies and the artists who…). I've personally been interested in things coming out from mainstream comics industry offshoot group Pirahna Press, which puts out quirky titles in graphic novel format fairly often. I keep an eye out for the latest releases from all these groups as well as fairly new-comers to the industry such as Panther Comics, which currently has an active drive to create a 'living' community of artists publishing together. TaviCat has also put out some fun and interesting titles in neat formats, such as the minibook Sushi Girl which is done on glossy stock with full (vivid!) color throughout.
Where would you find Japanese doujinshi? If you're in the US, there are few sources. A few online places, such as US Anime, carry some, and you're bound to find a few at anime conventions or on ebay (though often for painful prices as frenzied fans, collectors or not, fight for the last shred of Duo Maxwell). In Japan, there are moderately common doujinshi fan events, including the all-original doujinshi convention Comitia and midsized convention Comic Revolution. But of course 'mid-sized' in this case refers to an environment where the 'Holy Grail' of many doujinshi collectors is called Comic Market, or Comiket for short. Attendance runs about 300,000 people over a three-day weekend - six times the size of the largest US (primarily mainstream) comic convention, the San Diego ComiCon, which also has booths for some non-comic or alternative comic attractions.
Comiket is held each year in high summer, and holds thousands of booths housing tens of thousands of artists/authors individually or as part of doujinshi circles. Each day tends to highlight work for different audiences, with days for 'boys' and 'girls' titles primarily. Out of the 300,000 attendees, Thompson estimates some 20,000 show up to CosPlay, wearing costumes (they change into them on site), and taking pictures is a big activity! Thompson has the impression that a majority of fans at Comiket are female, and many artists are female as well, putting out parodies of boys' comics, many including homoerotic imagery (yaoi), although many are 'safe to bring home to your parents.'
Some talent scouts go to these events to recruit for major companies, Thompson agrees, but also notes that other companies complain that these artists are 'otaku' (obsessive fanboys) and only care about their parody work. So this type of artist may be useless, as a serious professional artist has to put out work that isn't always so near and dear to their own interests. I've had discussions with industry professionals in other areas of anime/manga production who agree that fans can be problematic as employees for this sort of reason.
Comiket used to have a lot of English language support, with foreigners allowed to cut in front of other people in line and given guide support, but unfortunately, says longtime fan Robert Li of NoName Anime club, abuse of the system by foreigners who gave tickets to Japanese friends to cut in line may have brought up a real concern of fairness to the Japanese fans who wait in line sometimes for hours prior to the event to make sure they can get in. Whatever the reason in the end, the practice has been abolished. There is a still a foreign liaison and some staff members who can make the process a little smoother for foreigners, but it's nowhere near as simple as it used to be due to this unfortunate situation. You might note that the English Comiket web site has not been updated since the special ticketing ceased.
Navigating such a huge place can be a major effort! The event itself is free. But the guidebook, which goes on sale in advance, costs - $40 last I checked. The book shows the table number and name of the group at each table in a little box with one tiny picture as a sample of their work, including hundreds of pages with 36 little squares each. You're left to swim through the sea of Japanese text and find what pictures you think are coolest and then fling yourself into the upstream lines to each stall you want to visit. With the teeming hordes of people, it can be really tough to get what you want before it's sold out - it's definitely not a casual shopping environment. Many people find it best to go in teams, splitting out a plan of attack to send people to different areas to get what they want. Some may communicate by radio or phone to call the others to a particularly good find worth pouncing on. There are professional company booths at Comiket as well, and many find this a great time to make new announcements. Often companies release limited edition items like promo pencil boards or unique keychains or figures at events only, but lines for these things can be hours long in and of themselves. That's a major setback on a day that's only twelve or so hours long to start with.
Want to market your doujinshi at Comiket? The price isn't bad, at perhaps $75 for a half table, at Thompson's estimate. But you'll have to factor in your travel expenses and the cost of having your work done on half decent paper in half decent print quality in the US and then shipped there. You could also get in touch with one of the Japanese companies that specialize in doujinshi publishing and work out arrangements with them from here … maybe not. If you were determined enough to try, it's sensible to make sure your arrangements with Comiket (much less your books) are done six months or more in advance via the foreign liaison. Experienced sales people note that you're likely to get more visitors with a popular subject, and that color covers can be critical since in such a frenzied, rushed environment, people don't have time to look through the books, they'll often just grab them based on the cover. American doujin artist Kevin Carvonen mentions Morgan Publishing and Canada's Brenner as publishing options in North America, and a group called Kyoshin in Japan.
Doujinshi can be a good indicator of what's most popular right now. Slayers, Gundam Wing, and Yu Yu Hakusho have all had their days of glory. The 1998 show had a lot of One Piece, Naruto and similar new series, Thompson reports. But doujinshi can be about anything. Some common to unusual examples include doujinshi about:
-bullet trains
The more unusual topics are unlikely ever to make it over to the US in a commercial venue (while the others are most likely to make it only through web sales and convention tables). Thompson laughs that he has one soda pop doujinshi that's basically a catalogue of soda pop types. The writer was appalled to discover than you can't get "American" brand soda in America. And he has one bishounen (beautiful boy) doujinshi about 'the secret love between Ronald McDonald and Col. Sanders.' Bishounen style manga have been done as well for Harry Potter and South Park. Fully original stories and characters include art portfolios, one about a girl in love with her hairdresser (she can gaze deeply into his eyes as he washes her hair, it seems), one about extinct animals and "Buddha GoGo" which you might have guessed is an original treatment of an old religious tale.
What's the big drawback in Japanese doujinshi vs. the ones being put out by those few, brave and broke American companies? Costs can be high, especially to get anything of interest to you. Even more difficult, they're completely in Japanese, which means that frequently subtle jokes can be tough to follow for a non-Japanese native speaker, much less the average Joe whose Kanji skills are right about where his extended Physics and Calculus skills went after college. The tremendous market in Japan, on the other hand, makes a much wider range of topics possible in the Japanese. Aside from the advantages inherent in having localized access to more stories, supporting the efforts being made in the US might be a little easier way to get a start into the world of doujinshi, but it's easy to enjoy both. Make decisions on what you'd like to find and read based on your reading ability, available pocket change, available sources, and interest in different subjects. And if you're in Japan in midsummer and enjoy fighting 300,000 frantic fans for breath, life, and Duo Maxwell, swing by Comiket!
Resources for more information on Doujinshi
< href="http://www.doujinshi-online.com/comiket/">One metric load of doujinshi related information! Some info on smaller markets as well as Comiket, and a great deal of info on doujinshi. I think Casey and Marisa work on this site, but it's not identified…
Comiket online (English site not updated since special tickets ceased)
A tour site we found - We don't know these people, so we make no guarantees of fitness for anything and we won't be held responsible for any dealings with them.
A small American effort linked to the Aesthetism Cybershoppe
Linus Lam Network News goes to the Comiket. See the lines! See the tables upon tables upon tables! See the costumes! I love the fish people, and Linus for being such a dedicated reporter! He even has pictures of people taking the pictures. If you ever want to go to a US convention and you feel you are going to have to stand in long lines, go look at this page for a sense of perspective. Sugoi fandom!
Thompson's doujinshi article - check out the February 2000 article in Pulp magazine
-bottle cap collections
-bands
-Star Trek
-sports
-glam rock
-animals
-uniforms
-travelogues
-Three-wheeled cars
-and doujinshi!