What's Doujinshi?

---

It's fan made comics but more. You can read more about doujinshi from the Wikipedia. Also stop by Akiba Angels to check out their site which has a big list of doujinshi creators. It also has a lot of reference material about doujinshi and Japan. Fair warning,most doujinshi is for adults...meaning there is a lot of odd hentai. I hope more PG doujinshi is created in the future. It's fun to read about video game characters!

Doujinshi is self published material. It ranges from comics to video games. Lately there are a few animes out there that cover this. Genshiken, Doujin Works, Welcome to NHK. I would love to see a Comiket like convention over here in the U.S.A. However, due to copy right issues, it's hard to know what would happen. In Japan, companies like Square-Enix seems to turn the other cheek when fan sell a bunch of comics. Yet there was a few people who got sued, for example a female who created a hentai Pokemon doujinshi got sued by Nintendo. Yet she seemed to be singled out and no one really knows why! (ugh I think this WAS in the Wired article...but I can't find it!)

So what about America? According to the Wired article, Japan has the same type of copy right law as we do. It's just the companies like the free promotion, as long as it doesn't get out of hand, like selling millions of copies, stealing images that are already used and story. For example, remaking the entire episode of Naruto in to a comic..then again I have a feeling that might of been done.

A lot of American artists don't want to get involved because of fear. If you check out my English doujinshi circles, most of them are out of America, so I wonder what they think about copyright laws? However there are a few English speaking circles growing! Even online you will find stuff like the Powerpuff Girl Doujinshi (they even have a store sell merchandise based on licensed characters). There's a lot of webcomics online that is based on video games too like 8-bit Theater. I need to look this up but I thought in America you can create parodies, as long has it's a certain percentage difference. Look at knock off brands!! Like those "Lisa Frank" packages you see at Hobby Lobby that is obviously not branded by Lisa Frank but a knock off.

---

Wired: Japan, Ink: Inside the Manga Industrial Complex
Wired: Harry Potter loves Malfoy: An article about doujinshi.
Editor's Desk: Doujinshi's Commercial Evolution