When imagination knows no limit

To truly understand what a doujinshi  convention is, you have to have done a little bit of research first and also experienced one in Japan. I came in contact with the concept of doujinshi last year during my first trip to Japan when I came across a doujinshin shop in Tokyo. I knew what doujinshi were before but I was surprised by the number of doujinshi available and the number of young people in the shop. Doujinshi is not something we hear about a lot in Canada and America and yet it is a very active part of Japanese culture. A lot of amateur artists are working hard to make those books look like professional products. The drawings and the book itself are sometimes very much like something you could buy in a well-known book store.

View inside Comic Market

But first let’s talk about doujinshi because some of you might not know what it is. Doujinshi are manga created by amateurs. As Japanese dictionary putted it: Doujinshi are magazines published as a cooperative effort by a group of individuals who share a common ideology or goals with the aim of establishing a medium through which their works can be presented. The characters are often taken from a well-known manga and the amateur puts his or her favourite characters in a different context or story and changes something to make the story his own. Most doujinshi are created by women for women. The stories are often homoerotic between two men. In a certain way, doujinshi are the fans respond to love story that are not developed in the story or that are simply inexistent. The fans make their own stories using someone else’s characters and sell them to other persons interested in this match-up. 

Comic City 81, 2010

The doujinshi world is working on its own parallel to the manga world even though the amateurs used copyrighted characters in their stories and sell them. Under most Western copyright laws, this concept would not be permitted. But for the Japanese perspective, and more precisely the manga industry, doujinshi is what keeps the manga world fresh and brings new artists to a bigger scene. In fact, a lot of manga companies find new artists at doujinshi conventions and this is where they recruit them. Doujinshi help the manga industry flourish.

I have heard that something similar is taking place in America, for example there are some people that are rewriting old Star Trek episodes but adding a romance between Kirk and Spock. But contrary to Japan, it is very much underground and there would not be conventions related to this contrary to Japan where it is in the open and accessible to all.

Comic City 81 poster, 2010

Doujinshi conventions are truly something you can only experience in Japan.  Conventions have been held since the 1980s all over Japan. Komiketto (comic market) which is held in Tokyo is one of the biggest doujinshi conventions in all of Japan. More than 35,000 circles, group of amateurs that work together to create a doujinshi, come to Komiketo to sell their books. As for the fans, as much as 550 000 visitors can attend the convention to buy doujinshi from their favourite amateurs during the three days of this convention.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Comic City 81 in Osaka. It was my first time in a real doujinshi convention and I learned a lot from this experience. There were really a large crowd attending and most of them were girls and women from all ages. Only a few boys were present when I visited and this can easily be understand because most amateurs were selling yaoi and boy’s love doujinshi which are often created for a female audience. I was also surprise by the broad diversity of amateurs. Some of them seemed quite young while others were groups of mature women in their fifties. This surprised me a lot to see young and older people, from two generations, sharing a common hobby in a society where age often dictates what interests you should have.

People waiting in line for Comic City 81, 2010

An example of Doujinshi

Most of the doujinshi sold there were homoerotic stories. Some of the images I saw were shocking to me and I was wondering about the fact that girls (fourteen to sixteen years old) were attending the convention and buying doushijin  for themselves although it is a known  fact that some doujinshi can be very graphic. Some of the doujinshi had a 18+ notice but it didn’t seem to bother much people.

A lot of people have heard about anime and manga conventions which are held around the world now. But doujinshi are also an important part of Japanese culture. During those conventions people who share a common interest from all ages come together to share their passion. From an outsider point of view maybe it is a little bit difficult to understand why so many female are creating and consuming homoerotic stories involving famous manga characters often taken from Shonen manga that primarily target a male audience. But I think that doujinshi are a very interesting aspect of the culture here. In a certain way, doujinshi allow a certain level of self-expression for Japanese people.

Unfortunatly, I couldn't take any pictures inside the building where the convention was held. But I think this aspect of japanese culture is very interesting and I wanted to share this with other people.

__________________________________________

References:

http://www.authorama.com/free-culture-4.html

http://blogs.arts.unimelb.edu.au/refractory/2006/12/04/why-are-japanese-girls%E2%80%99-comics-full-of-boys-bonking1-mark-mclelland/

http://www.csuchico.edu/~mtoku/vc/Articles/toku/Wil_Toku_BoysLove.html

http://www.comiket.co.jp/info-a/WhatIsEng080528.pdf