Doujinshi - Fanlore

Doujinshi are Japanese works in manga or novel form that are not created for or by the professional market. While famous mangaka (manga creators) will occasionally publish dōjinshi, they are usually self-published amateur productions intended for the entertainment of fans rather than for financial gain. Many but not all dōjinshi are fan comics, and sometimes the term is used as a synonym for "fan comic in a manga style".

Occasionally, dōjinshi artists cross over to become successful professionals, such as the female artists' collective CLAMP or Maki Murakami, creator of Gravitation.

Western fans of Japanese doujinshi have their own fandom where they sell manga brought in from Japan and share translations: see for example [the doujinshi_club community on livejournal].

Non-professional western works created in a manga style are sometimes referred to as dōjinshi, and their creators often see themselves as dōjinshi artists^[1]. Due to the prevalence and acceptability of transformative works in the japanese comics market, western dōjinshi artists are more likely to create and publish fan comics than comic artists working in more traditional western styles.

Dōjinshi fan comics are most often based on texts in a manga style (such as manga, anime, and japanese video games), but there are dōjinshi for many other fandoms from Harry Potter^[2] to the Power Puff Girls^[3].

Resources

• Japan, Ink: Inside the Manga Industrial Complex

1. ↑ dojinshi_circle livejournal community, originally a group of artists from New York
2. ↑ Harry Potter Doujinshi
3. ↑ Power Puff Girls Doujinshi