All about doujinshi culture and common misconceptions

Instead of finishing my latest meandering review, today's post is a rant! If you don't like that kind of thing please skip it. There'll be more of my usual over-enthusiastic babbling next time.

Doujinshi: a world which is often misunderstood

I felt completely demoralised earlier this week when I clicked a Crunchyroll news story about how some Japanese doujinshi artists are helping others remove unauthorised links to their work from Google search results. The article itself was fine - though I did wonder how well the writer understood what he was talking about when he filled the post with illustrations drawn by someone else without their permission. The problem was that I curiously checked the comments.

A lot of people seem to have strong opinions on doujinshi culture in Japan without having the slightest idea about the realities of the situation there. This isn't the first time I've been exposed to these attitudes and it won't be the last; there was a huge scandal last year when Amazon.com started reselling illegal scans of parody doujinshi (several of which were explicit) on its Kindle store. Amazon weren't responsible directly; they'd been tricked by an unknown party who had acted as an agent and provided the illegal materials. Artists in Japan were appalled when bilingual blogger Komatsu Mikikazu alerted them to the situation, but with many individual creators lacking fluency in English it took some time before the situation was resolved and the material removed.

The biggest fear of many of the artists who were affected by this was never that they might lose revenue from the pirated doujinshi being made available like this, or that the translations might not be good quality, or whatever other reason the bulk of skeptical foreign commentators were suggesting. It was that the creators of the titles that were being parodied would see the works listed and jump to the wrong conclusion about the doujin circles' intentions. It was imperative that the problem be dealt with as quickly as possible, but Amazon's cumbersome complaints process required a physical letter written in English from each artist whose work had been stolen. Many of the artists had long moved on since the time they originally drew those old books, and even being able to understand the foreign complaints instructions was a challenge for non-English speakers. The procedure required them to then write a formal letter to Amazon in the US and wait a week for it to arrive by international mail, then wait a further month while Amazon deliberated the case. This scenario left plenty of time for the problem to escalate even if the artist was fluent in English and dealt with the problem immediately, a situation which terrified the wider doujinshi community with its implications.

What I found additionally disconcerting about the situation then is that most western commentators were only upset that the rights of the scanlators who had made the unauthorised material available in digital form in the first place were being infringed by the unknown person who listed all of the books on Amazon. Very few English-language discussions mentioned the doujin circles' rights anywhere in the debate. I don't disagree that scanning, lettering and translating without permission takes time. However, planning, writing, drawing and printing a whole doujinshi takes a great deal more, not to mention talent. I'm not sure whether this is a xenophobic attitude since fandom on the whole is usually very vocal about protecting the rights of local creators of derivative works. Is it seen as acceptable in some communities to disrespect the work of others if they can't easily complain about it in English?

This idea was reinforced by the comments on the Crunchyroll article today.

I was always taught that two wrongs don't make a right yet it seems that for some people here in the west, they do. Many posters used the rationalisation that the doujinshi are unauthorised parodies, therefore there's no problem with making unauthorised copies of them and spreading them around the Internet without permission. I don't think it's possible to change the minds of those who have already taken a hostile stance, but perhaps if I can gather together everything I know about doujinshi in this post newer fans might stumble upon it one day and understand that the statements parroted by many fans overseas aren't always based upon solid facts.

What are doujinshi?

Doujinshi are fan-made 'books'. The vast majority of these take the form of printed B5 comics drawn by amateur artists, though novels (printed fan fiction) and art books aren't uncommon. Doujinshi are just one part of the doujin scene, which also includes other indie creations such as doujin games, doujin music and doujin goods (fan-made merchandise).

Japanese fans often use the English word 'coterie' in place of 'doujin' to describe the groups of fans which gather together to create a doujin product. As this word isn't commonly used where I'm from, I personally prefer to stick to 'fanzines' or 'fan comics' depending on the situation or just leave the word in Japanese.

The group which created an individual doujinshi is called a 'circle', and it may be made up of several participants or just one person (a 'kojin' circle). Circles with only one member are very common in fandoms with an older demographic, while larger circles often grow from university clubs or close-knit groups of friends.

For the purpose of this blog post I'm focusing mainly on parody doujinshi, the fan comics based on existing manga, anime and games which are best known in the west.

Doujinshi facts and fiction

I'll close this post with a few observations in the hope that they'll help tackle some common misconceptions about the doujinshi environment.

Fiction: All manga artists hate the doujinshi industry.

Fact: Many artists today made their start drawing doujinshi before shifting to original works and becoming professionals in their own right. There are even cases of manga artists drawing doujinshi for their own series, to expand on the universe they created, play around with non-canon scenarios or simply collect illustrations they produced in their own time. That's not to say that individual creators are always happy seeing their characters used in other peoples' work, which leads into...

Fiction: Doujinshi creators want more people reading their work.

Fact: It's important to understand the Japanese need for discretion, something which seems to be difficult for a lot of westerners to grasp. The reason that the parody doujinshi market is allowed to thrive the way it does is based on the artists respecting the wishes of the creators and not getting carried away by success, and part of this involves controlling the circulation of their work so that it doesn't cause the original creators of a series any trouble. I have never met a doujinshi artist who wants their parody work to be widely known outside of the community of fans they created it for. They do benefit from greater exposure to their original and authorised projects, but unauthorised parodies are supposed to be handled with discretion. This unspoken rule is at the heart of why Japanese copyright holders can peacefully coexist with doujinshi circles, and it's also why large scale digital distribution of unauthorised doujinshi scans is seen as such a serious problem.

Fiction: Doujinshi circles are out to make a profit.

Fact: Very few doujinshi circles ever profit financially from their work. The books are sold cheaply and in small numbers. When printing costs, shipping, materials, entry fees, travel tickets, posters/signs for their table and hotels are taken into account, each circle has to sell a large number of books at every event just to come close to breaking even; if they overestimate their popularity they'll be left with piles of doujinshi nobody wants and a lot of bills to pay. Fans overseas often see pictures of the lines of people queued up at events to buy from famous kabe ('wall') circles without getting to glimpse the rows of people sitting in the main halls who might only attract ten or twenty people to their table all day long. Creating doujinshi for a relatively unpopular series is one reason for this - nobody is going to make a detour to a different hall to check out Call Of Duty doujinshi in Japan unless they're already a fan of the series. Not being well-known or having a unique art style are other reasons sales might be slow. These smaller circles massively outnumber the popular, well-known ones.

If you purchase from a circle directly you'll also come across a phenomenon which demonstrates how little profit they plan to make: bonus items. I've sometimes paid for a ¥400 parody book at an event and been given a pile of presents to go with it, including circle-themed cloth bags, stickers, sweets, cups, posters, keychains, pens, flannels and plastic files. They're obviously not pricey (if they were, they'd be sold separately as doujin goods) yet manufacturing a small number of bonus items to give away for free makes participation even more expensive for a circle for no real benefit. Free photocopied comics called 'papers' - not to be confused with homemade copybon doujinshi which are usually sold normally - are another bonus frequently thrown in to reward people for visiting a table. It all adds up.

The reason that there's some confusion over the issue of financial rewards seems to be that only the very largest circles ever receive any recognition in the west, and it's these circles who are in the best position to be able to sell enough books at each event to turn a reliable profit from their hobby. They're also the most likely to be have careers in the creative industry already. The amateur artists who represent the vast majority of participants at doujinshi events are in it for reasons other than money - often nothing more than a need to express their love of a hobby, gain some recognition for their talents or meet other fans in person for some socialising. They scramble for time to complete their doujinshi in between working full time to earn a living and offset the costs.

An interesting article studying a cross-section of the more successful doujinshi creators was posted here.

Fiction: Doujinshi are sold all over Japan.

Fact: Doujinshi are distributed in one of two ways: directly by the creator or through a specialist doujinshi store. The former usually takes place through doujinshi 'sokubaikai' fairs, the most famous of which is the huge biannual Comic Market event (Comiket). More popular doujinshi circles take things a step further and also send consignments of their books to shops like Toranoana, Mandarake, K-Books and Animate where they'll be sold for a limited time. Recently this has been extended by online stores such as DLSite which allow users to purchase doujinshi and doujin software digitally. Any other source of doujinshi, from online auctions to recycling shops, is probably unauthorised. In theory, this limited distribution model gives doujinshi creators control over access to their work which would make it very easy to comply with requests from copyright holders to stop making parodies of their series available. Modern doujinshi usually carry a very firm disclaimer (often in English as well as Japanese) requesting that fans refrain from circulating the books on the secondhand market. A plea which is all too often intentionally ignored.

Fiction: Doujinshi are always reprinted and kept in circulation.

Fact: Almost all doujinshi go out of general circulation after a few months. Popular circles sometimes reprint their biggest hits, often as sairoku compilation books. Yet the vast majority of doujinshi never see a second print run and disappear into obscurity within a few years of their first appearance. The reasons for this are varied; an artist might take up a professional career and want to move away from doujinshi, or they might see their older art/writing as embarrassing once they've matured and decide to put it behind them. The limited nature of doujinshi keeps them from building up too much fame and damaging the reputation of the original series they parody - until, of course, someone overseas scans a book and makes it widely available against the wishes of the person who drew it.

Fiction: Doujinshi are pornographic comics which rip off existing series.

Fact: The doujinshi which appear on most websites in the west without permission fall into this broad category, however, it's likely that most fans expecting this kind of content would be disappointed visiting most Japanese doujinshi sales events or wandering into the wrong hall at Comiket. Not only are many books suitable for fans of all ages, many aren't comics at all - let alone parodies of existing series!

Fiction: The rights of the scanners/translators are more important than those of the artist.

Fact: This sounds so ridiculous that I wouldn't believe that anyone thought this way if I hadn't had experience of it myself. People are very courteous about thanking scanners, translators and uploaders and crediting them on any derivative works, while at the same time rarely even looking up the name of the person who spent months slaving away at their computer drawing every single strand of hair in the fan comic on their own. And when there are problems, like the Amazon Kindle situation or the one in the news story I linked, there are always more people complaining that the rights of the scanlators aren't being respected than there are worrying about the creator themselves. I'm not sure whether this is a straightforward case of people defending their access to free scans instead of thinking rationally, or a bias towards other English-speakers. All I know is that it stinks.

Fiction: Foreign doujinshi scanlations have no effect on anime/manga companies.

Fact: The classic situation is that an employee in the legal department of a large, faceless corporation finds out about an unusually successful parody doujinshi. Because it seems illogical for a third party to waste time scanning, cleaning, lettering and distributing a digital version without permission, they assume that the doujinshi circle are behind it and aggressively promoting their unauthorised comic on the Internet, damaging the reputation of the original publishers. An extreme example would be a pornographic story based on a family-friendly manga - as soon as the press or a parent spotted it available online with no restrictions there'd be an uproar. To avoid the risk of a scandal, the company would want that material removed as quickly as possible. And since the doujin circle wouldn't be able to, because it was being hosted overseas on hundreds of websites and file-sharing networks, they'd get into some serious legal trouble. Even if a kid in another country was behind the upload of the offending scanlation, the doujin circle would bear the responsibility.

It's bad on a smaller scale too. If a Japanese company believes that the availability of smutty parody comics are the reason that American anime companies aren't falling over themselves to pay a huge sum to license one of their original shows, they'll clamp down and put a stop to the perceived damage to their reputation. There's no need for there to be any proof that the doujinshi were the reason for the disinterest from investors; the original copyright holders are well within their rights to silence parodies of their work at any time. If several companies worked together they could apply enough pressure to make distributing parody doujinshi almost impossible. A little selfish greed from fans could ruin the hobby forever for everyone, all over the world.

Fiction: Foreign doujinshi scanlations have no effect on doujinshi artists.

Fact: Creators who discover that someone has scanned their work never react with the delight that many scanlation downloaders believe they will. The reactions I've seen range from anger to despair as they lose sleep worrying about what might happen to them if their work attracts the wrong kind of attention. Upsetting the creators of the material they claim to enjoy by spreading it around online without permission is no way for a fan to behave, and in some cases it has caused talented artists to stop sharing their work with others entirely.

Fiction: It's ok to share doujinshi online so long as you include a warning asking people not to share them.

Fact: The scanner already ignored the warnings that almost every single doujinka puts in the back of their books, politely requesting that readers refrain from copying, scanning or distributing their work. Why would strangers on the internet behave any differently? It happens every time - content from a book which was originally shared discreetly is eventually uploaded to another site or made into icons, a video or a Tumblr post. The scanner avoids taking responsibility by blaming the sharer, who doesn't care. In the end, the only person who suffers is the original doujinshi creator whose work was stolen and disrespected by their own fans.

Fiction: It's ok to share fan art and doujinshi so long as you link back to the original creator.

Fact: This is simply untrue unless they've given you direct permission to do so. Please always ask first - and remember that if you don't receive a response, you don't have permission.

Fiction: Scanning doujinshi is protected under US fair use laws.

Fact: Fair use requires that consideration is given to the effect that making the extract available would have on the original or the market, which in the case of doujinshi is considerable and entirely negative. In addition, fair use law doesn't allow for copying an entire book and distributing it online without permission. It's intended to make it easy for people to use work in illustrative samples, not to defend cases of blatant copyright infringement which damage the original creator. Simply put, copying artwork and comics made by other fans is a bad idea and outside the scope of any reasonable interpretation of fair use.

Fiction: Doujinshi have no restrictions on content.

Fact: Japanese obscenity laws require that creators censor depictions of certain body parts and acts, even in the world of amateur comics. This usually takes the form of mosaics or censorship bars over parts of the offending panels.

In addition, if a circle wishes to sell their doujinshi at a doujinshi event or on consignment it's a requirement that they clearly mark the covers of any adult books to warn potential readers. Checks are made by staff at conventions and circles who have misrepresented their books or sold adult material to people under the age of eighteen will be punished. Shops which carry doujinshi separate their stock into content suitable for all ages and adults-only material so that there's no risk of a minor purchasing an unsuitable product. Even if a circle only distributes a book through their own website on a small scale, they run the risk of breaking obscenity laws in Japan if their work is excessively explicit.

Fiction: All joseimuke (female-orientated) doujinshi are BL or yaoi.

Fact: It's true that boys' love stories are well-represented in shops and events aimed at females. So are comedies, traditional heterosexual romances, dramas and adventure stories. Since there seems to be some confusion from comments I've read online, I want to add that's possible (and indeed common) to have female-orientated stories - including BL - with no adult content whatsoever.

Fiction: All anthology comics are doujinshi.

Fact: Some popular series in Japan receive officially-sanctioned anthology comics, which are volumes of manga (usually short stories) created by a number of different artists (usually stars from the doujinshi world). While the manga and content often seems very similar to doujinshi, the books are published and distributed professionally with the rights holders' blessings. Of course, there are also unofficial fan-made anthologies for circulation at events as well. Checking a book for the presence of corporate logos will confirm which it is.

Fiction: All doujinshi are derivative.

Fact: A significant proportion of doujinshi are classed as 'original' works rather than 'parody' stories, meaning that they aren't based on an existing series. Many famous doujinshi circles which become well-known for their parody books eventually shift to producing original works so that they can exercise more control over their creations, setting themselves up for a professional career in the industry. The television anime Haibane Renmei famously started with a series of original doujinshi by already-respected artist ABe Yoshitoshi, and the enormous success achieved by TYPE-MOON from their roots in the doujin world has been well documented. Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni (When They Cry) and the ubiquitous Touhou Project fandom also came straight out of the doujin game subculture.

The fact that these series have gone on to receive commercial recognition later shows that talented amateur creators can use the doujin model to prepare fantastic works which might not be easy to pitch to a standard publisher. The Hatsune Miku fandom is as big as it is because musicians using the Vocaloid software to write songs are supported by artists and writers breathing life into Miku's world with illustrations and music videos, giving indie original music a professional edge. There are doujin circles composed of essayists, photographers, reviewers, designers, illustrators, travel writers, train enthusiasts and cooks who create doujinshi about their hobbies without ever needing to dabble in parody.

Fiction: All parody doujinshi are unauthorised.

Fact: While most are, there are some which unquestionably come with approval from the creators - not least of which are the doujinshi drawn by the original artists themselves. Murakami Maki's explicit parodies of her own Gravitation manga are one example of how a mangaka can use doujinshi to make silly spin-offs of their own work without having to worry about getting it approved to run in a more conservative publication, or making sure it fits into the plot of the core series.

Fiction: Fans who make parody doujinshi don't create the art/dialogue themselves.

Fact: Doujinshi creators are expected to draw/write the material in their books themselves (or take the photographs themselves if it's a photographic journal). Tracing or photocopying the original artwork or logos from the series they're parodying and passing it off as their own is not acceptable. The only time you'll see anything approaching a proper logo is when it's been altered heavily for a crossover joke - there must never be any chance of causing confusion with licensed products. That's not to say that parody doujinshi don't contravene Japanese copyright laws when they use characters from another person's project without permission. It's just that all of the art and text is expected to be the work of the doujinshi circle, therefore they have a right to control their work when needed under international copyright regulations (as with the recent Google DMCA takedown story).

Fiction: Creating doujinshi of a series and pirating a series are comparable.

Fact: The main difference between pirating a manga/anime/game and making a doujinshi parody of it are that the first replaces a sale in most cases whereas the second actively encourages a sale. It's very difficult to understand most fan fiction, fan art or doujinshi manga from a series you have never read, watched or played. In effect, so long as the doujinshi aren't damaging the original in some way by copying content or passing themselves off as official side stories, it can be argued that doujinshi complement the original work to some extent, just like fan fiction, fan art and fan discussions. In contrast, a pirated copy can be exactly the same as the original material (and at times even better). While I don't dispute that some people go on and purchase a series after enjoying a pirated version of it, it's a fact that many never will.

Fiction: It's impossible to buy doujinshi outside Japan.

Fact: Doujinshi are readily traded on the used market, but if you want to respect the wishes of your favourite circles you should try to purchase from one of their direct distributors if you have the chance (or a reputable doujinshi reseller if it's an older book). Some unscrupulous sellers on auction sites buy up popular doujinshi and sell them for many times their original cost - I've seen eBay listings for individual doujinshi costing over £50 when you can buy the same book in Japan for ¥210! Don't accept scalping when waiting can usually lead to finding the same book at a much more reasonable price from a Japanese distributor's secondhand corner. The usual price for a brand new doujinshi can be anywhere between ¥100 and ¥1,000, with thicker books sometimes costing more (the price is lower if you buy directly from the circle at an event).

Because westerners have built up a reputation for illicitly scanning and disrespecting the work of Japanese creators, some distributors no longer allow foreigners to buy from them. Others have a more open approach with English-language support and overseas shipping. Mandarake is the best known, selling a mixture of used and brand new books - you can see which it is by checking the listing, where it might mention 'spot sale' for newer books or have the word 'NEW' in the title. Meikido is another option for female buyers. They put a note (in English) into every delivery reminding foreign customers not to exploit the service if they want support for overseas shipments to continue. Otaku Republic has English-speaking staff and might be better if you're based in the US. DLSite deals in digital doujin works and caters for customers overseas on both its English and Japanese websites. To use other stores, it may be necessary to sign up for a Japanese proxy service to buy on your behalf.

Edit: Toranoana has now opened up to foreign buyers too via a partnership with Tenso.

Fiction: Without scanlations, it's hard to see whether a doujinshi is good before buying.

Fact: The major online doujinshi stores host preview images of a few pages from inside the book to help buyers check whether the artwork and premise matches up to the cover. Many artists also provide samples on their websites or Pixiv accounts. It should be noted that Japanese fans have no more information upon which to base their purchasing decisions than foreigners, unless they're lucky enough to be able to attend an event at which a particular book is being sold in person. The additional cost of international shipping which fans overseas have to bear doesn't ever justify scanning and sharing the book online.

Fiction: Doujinshi creators dislike foreigners.

Fact: Some of the English-language warnings printed in doujinshi and on creator websites can sound hostile, and this leads people to take up an anti-creator stance and avoid contacting them for permission. The tone of these messages isn't usually because people hate foreigners, it's because they've had bad experiences and learnt to treat westerners with caution. I don't think this is unfounded in the slightest. I once uploaded a silly piece of fan art onto Pixiv to share with the community there. Within days, it had been mirrored by various western art websites with no references while my original picture received no feedback at all. I eventually deleted it and abandoned the idea of sharing my amateur creations with the community at all; that was easier than wasting hours of my time trying to control the ingrained sense of entitlement exhibited by a large number of fans online.

For Japanese creators who don't speak English at all, the attitudes exhibited by some English-speakers are terrifying. They might contact the artist directly in careless, impossible-to-translate English, bragging about downloading an unauthorised copy of their work. Or they might copy their illustrations to a different website and remove all credit, using them for backgrounds and icons for their Tumblr account. Or perhaps they'll publicise an obscure parody doujinshi and post it on YouTube in its entirety, bringing it to the attention of Japanese publishers who might sue the original artist, thinking that they posted it there themselves. These thoughtless actions can demoralise the powerless creators and cause them to take their websites down, close their Pixiv accounts, block all foreign visitors by IP address or stop drawing altogether.

It's not all bad news, though. If you take a polite approach, not only will many circles be delighted to hear from a foreign fan but they may even help you purchase their books directly or share anecdotes about their previous experiences. Creative people all over the world love to hear feedback from other fans, so long as they respect their work and take care not to be insensitive. I hope that English-speakers will be able to improve our bad reputation overseas one day, one email at a time.

Fiction: I can't enjoy doujinshi without being able to read Japanese.

Fact: There are many types of doujinshi suitable for non-Japanese speakers, from full colour illustration collections anyone can enjoy to books officially translated into English. Some more traditional manga are so beautifully drawn that they can have value even from the art alone. For decades there have been successful attempts to produce home-grown non-Japanese doujinshi and art books as well, despite the extra challenges of having no dedicated printers or outlets through which to distribute the finished work besides anime conventions.

Fiction: The only way I can share my love of doujinshi is by scanlating them without permission or sharing their artwork on third party sites.

Fact: I strongly disagree with this. It's always tempting to want to share something new you've discovered with other people, but the cost is the trust of the original creator whose hard work you've trampled in the process. There must be a better way. Remember the need for discretion when it comes to parody works, and check a creator's website or profile before reposting any artwork you find online to see whether they have any restrictions on sharing their art that way. If you want to do anything with their creations yet aren't sure, keep it to a simple link to their site or contact them directly to ask for permission before you share anything. If they don't respond, they did not give permission. Contacting creators in Japanese is best. If that's not possible, an email in simple English is always better than not asking at all. Machine translations are often difficult to understand so please remember to include your original English message with any Babelfish-translated text in case they need to clarify the details.

If you can speak Japanese and befriend a Japanese doujinka, it might be possible to collaborate with them and translate work for them on Pixiv or even in published books, especially for original doujinshi which can be sold more freely without copyright concerns.

On the matter of sharing, helping new fans find and buy books they'd like to collect is another very simple thing that can be done without troubling the circles, or arranging group purchases if several people in a community want to make a proxy order.

Want to know more?

There's very little information available in English about how the industry works. The resources that I've seen include the fan-made Doujinshi & Manga Lexicon database, an ambitious project to scrape doujinshi details from Japanese vendors to create a searchable database of what's available. A number of doujin circles in Japan are uncomfortable with this as it publicises their work further; still, it's an interesting site.

This guide to using Meikido may be useful to people who cannot speak Japanese. A guide to the various proxy services and Japanese shopping websites is beyond the scope of this article; many people have written them and they're only a web search away.

There are also some commercially-available English-language anime which heavily feature doujinshi culture as part of their plot such as Comic Party and Genshiken. Most of these are simple entertainment with a few interesting observations here and there, but Dojin Work has a documentary segment where the seiyuu from the anime episodes are tasked to create a doujinshi of their own from scratch. It's absolutely fascinating to watch them talking about printing costs, dividing up the labour and struggling to get their single book finished. It gives a good insight into the lives of the real-world fans who have perfected this process, often alone, to be able to keep releasing new books every time there's a new event to attend.

In summary

I'm not a doujinshi creator myself, merely an avid collector and fan who occasionally exchanges messages with talented people behind the work. It's heartbreaking to see how shocked artists in Japan get whenever their work is treated with disrespect overseas and so frustrating that it feels as though there's nothing that can be done to change some fellow overseas collectors' ingrained attitudes towards the doujinshi community.

Since I'm a fan and this blog post isn't an impartial essay intended for formal publication, I don't really feel that the anti-doujinshi viewpoint needs to be aired here (it's all over the English-speaking Internet already). If anyone reading this has any questions, corrections or comments that aren't rehashing the same arguments about profits and irony again, I'd be delighted to hear them in the comments section.