DOUJINSHI  

Doujinshi:  
     A doujinshi is any type of non-commercial printed material with very limited distribution, published and sold as a hobby by the authors and/or by their associates.  Although the term doujinshi in itself does not determine that the contents of the publication to be manga and/or related to manga, within this essay and future issues of Storm Front Journal, it will be treated as such.  

Shougyoushi:  
     The "commercial" counterpart to doujinshi is shougyoushi, or commercial publications.  In Japan, categories such as small press and independent publishers are useless and confusing because all books are essentially either commercial (widely distributed, commercial enterprises) or non-commercial (limited distribution, hobby operations).  There are numerous commercial enterprises that specialize in small press publications (for example, segments of the academic publishing industry).  But on the other hand, numerous Japanese doujinshi publications exceed print runs of many American independent publications while never being sold (new) in any bookstores.  By the very nature of its structure and environment, shougyoushis (commercial publications) are inclined to be more conservative in editing and selecting material that it features.  This is not to say the do not print provocative material, but over all, they tend to shy away from controversy and conflict.  Another issue to take note is the order availability of publications.  No matter how limited the print run, a commercial publication will strive to make its book commercially available to retail outlets nations wide through special order programs.  If you place an order for a commercial publication, it might take a couple of months but the book should eventually make it to you.  This will not be the case for doujinshis.  In this case you will either have to order it directly from the publisher or the bookstore that consignments the book.  This is starting to change as numerous specialty stores have sprout up in metropolitan areas sell doujinshi on a consignment basis.  But even in this case, the distribution system do not overlap.  

Comics and Books in Japan:  
     In the United States books, magazines, newspapers, and comic books have independent distribution systems.  In many respects, each has its own specialized retail outlets.  Regular bookstores sell books primarily and comic book stores sell comic books primarily.  Each are backed by different distribution services.  In Japan, however, commercial publications are primarily treated similarly no matter what format it might be in.  Manga is distributed and retailed right along with regular books and newspapers.  The great majority of all commercial comic book compilations are sold in regular bookstores, and all most all commercial comic book magazines are sold in regular magazine outlets in Japan.  This does not preclude variations in the selections offered in stores, but it should be noted that you can order almost any form of commercial publication that is currently in print through your local bookstore.  Only a relatively small number of stores specialize in the sale of comic books, but recently they have started to becoming prevalent in major population centers all across Japan.  

Doujinshi publishing mediums:  
     Currently most doujinshis are either offset printed by professional printing companies that specialize in small print runs publications (such as doujinshi) or are photocopied by hand by the authors themselves.  Photocopy doujinshis are not as common anymore but they are still regarded as a viable means of printing for certain types of doujinshis.  
     In the early days, artists and cartoonists would circulate a single sketchbook around and share their art among their peers.  These were referred to as nikuhitsu kairanbans ("circulated boards featuring the original artwork").  Rotary press spirit duplicators (purple ink on paper), mimeographs (grainy black ink), and lithographs (primitive offset) were utilized in the past up until the advent of photocopying machines.  While offset printing had been available for quite some time, until recently the minimum requirements of print runs necessary and the total cost associated to doing one was difficult to work with.  The biggest breakthrough came not from notable improvements in printing but rather from the economies of scale[1] that had come about as a result of the explosive growth due to the popularity of doujinshis.  As the doujinshi conventions grew larger, the number of book circles publishing increased, and the gross volume of copies printed exploded, prompting more printing companies to provide their services.  In addition, previously expensive costs for the printers gradually decreased (such as the cost of the prints themselves) as their volume of business increased.  
     Currently an entire industry, comprised of mid to small sized commercial printers, supports the doujinshi publishing community.  Corporate doujinshi printers are one of the few genuine commercial elements inseparably involved in the doujinshi world, but even they must orient their business around the interests and demands of those that publish their books as a hobby.  Customer friendly services, memberships, discount programs, special customized printing features, delivery to conventions, and many other services are prevalent thoughout doujinshi printers.  

Doujinshi formats:  
     There are no set rules for the format of a doujinshi, but there are some generalized tendencies that most doujinshis follow.  Nearly all doujinshi are either classified as personal book ("kojinshis") or anthologies (a.k.a. "yorozu" or something "-bon", such as a 鉄tar Wars bon・or a 店-Men bon・.  Many doujinshi authors are invited by their peers to join in on their specific theme centered anthologies.  Anything can become a theme for a doujinshi anthology, but many books are about a specific anime show or some cult interest.  After a while, the author who has contributed to various anthologies may collect all his or her material into one book.  Many authors may decide to create all new material for his or her own book.  Books that feature primarily only one author are referred to as kojinshis. Kojinshis can be supported by circles. Some circles only do kojinshis. These are known as kojin circles.  When only two authors are featured in a book, some have referred to these as a nizinshi ("two person books"), but generally anything featuring more then two authors are considered anthologies.  

Major doujinshi genres:  
     I do not believe it would be inappropriate to say that there as many genres of doujinshis as there are doujinshis.  It is very difficult to neatly organize all doujinshis into categories without becoming uselessly abstract ("original, erotic, and parodies") or becoming hopelessly extensive and specific ("a genre for each doujinshi").  A slightly erotic Urusieyatsura / Bladerunner crossover comedy-parody-anthology[2] should not be in a genre of its own, but neither does it neatly fit into categories such as erotic adaptation, anime parody, or foreign movies.  The list of genres that I have complied here should be considered loose categories, simplified specifically in a pedagogical manner.  In some respects, these are the categories I employ to judge a doujinshi. (i.e. the book was not very exciting as a "men's adapted erotic fiction" doujinshi, but if it was seen as an "adaptation and parody" doujinshi it was quite entertaining.)  Keep in mind that these categories are only loose sub divisions and various doujinshis could fit into multiple brackets listed below.  
  

• Boy's original fiction:  Precluding extreme oddities and specialized material, this category includes all types of original fiction fit for young men to enjoy.  The stories tend emphasize action and adventure. Sometimes the genre is represented by the shonen manga ("boy's comic") style, common in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump and Shogakkan's Sunday for example. The genre overlaps with the girl's original fiction genre to some degree. 

• Girl's original fiction:  Precluding extreme oddities and specialized material, this category includes all types of original fiction intended for young women to enjoy.  The stories tend to emphasize psychological introspection and human relations.  Sometimes the genre is represented by the shojyo manga ("girl's comic") style, common in Chao, Booke, and Ribbon.  Overlaps with boy's original fiction genre to some degree. 

• Fan club:  The object of the infatuation may be anime, manga, TV, movie, novel, a sports team, an idol-singer, or anything else more or less tangible.  This category is similar to the adaptations and parodies genre, but the emphasis is on doing fan club activities and celebrating the material or the subject fairly close to its native form.  This is a contrast to the adaptations and parodies genre that usually involves actively reworking the material.  This does not preclude that there is a heavy cross over between the two genres.  Most author sanctioned ("official") fan clubs publish material that fits into this genre.  Numerous fan club doujinshis feature material by the author who is the subject of the fan club.  Material featured may include sketches, idea sheets, story boards, the early works of the author, and/or interviews with the author.  The second component of fan clubs doujinshis are comprised by the non-media fan publications.  Follow ups on popular players and inside stories are a regular staple in books published by the doujinshi publishers fascinated by either a sport or a particular player.  Other groups that publish similar style publications include idol singer fans, racing fans, music fans, live-action fans, and others.

• Adaptations and parodies:  This genre primarily refers to adaptations and parodies that focus on recreating, reworking, and actively challenging the original material.  The style can vary widely from recreations of simulated ("what if") situations, peculiar cross-overs, light-hearted comedy, or extending on to making fun of the short comings of the original shows.  At the Comic Market and other doujinshi conventions, adaptations and parodies are subdivided into categories according to their source material.  (e.g. "Uruseiyatsura" and "Sailor Moon")  Parodies can be of anime shows, OVAs, video games, manga serials, novels, TV and movies, and much more.  This genre is closely interconnected to adapted erotic fiction for men, yaoi, and fan clubs.

• "Yaoi":  This category is considered to be the women's equivalent of the men's adapted erotic fiction.  There are no sections identified as the Yaoi genre at the Comic Market but the books are there nevertheless (hidden within the adaptations and parodies genre and the fan club genre).  Yaoi was originally an abbreviation for a self-mocking statement regarding erotic adaptations regardless of the gender of the creator.  (Ya-O-I = "Yama nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nashi" which means "No build up (in storytelling), no wrapping up (the conclusion), no real deep meaning (in doing the book)".)  For whatever reason, the term now has attached itself with erotic adaptations and parodies created by women.  The material that would be classified into this genre primarily involves gay relationships between the handsome or cute (male) characters.  The genre tends to overlap with the adaptations and parodies genre, but this is not always the rule, for there is considerable crossover with the "June" category, as well as the fan club genres. 

• Men's adapted erotic fiction:  Erotic fiction primarily by men for the consumption by men which feature adaptations of popular characters and/or story lines.  As with the case of the Yaoi genre, there are no sections identifying a group of circles as belong to this category in the Comic Market Catalog, they are there nevertheless.  Currently, there is a tendency for the genre to be soft core orientated, a contrast to the hard core tendencies of men's original fiction, but this is only a tendency and not a generalization.  This category overlaps with the adaptations and parodies genre and with men's original erotic fiction genre.

• "June":  The word itself is derived from the title of a commercial erotic publication well known for featuring gay relationships between good looking young men and boys.  The readership is comprised largely of young women in their teens and early twenties.  Within the realm of doujinshis, the term is utilized to describe a specific style of erotic material that primarily involve gay relationships, but narrated with a strong emphasis on aestheticism.  The genre is almost entirely consumed by women.  While June does not preclude adaptations and parodies, traditionally it has embraced original material stronger (especially historical, as in romantic relationships between famous historical characters).  There is considerable overlap between "June" and Yaoi.

• Women's original erotic fiction:  Erotic fiction which employs original characters.  The contents can vary so widely, it is nearly impossible to subdivide any further.  Most closely overlaps with adapted erotic fiction for men, but it also overlaps considerably with the boy's original fiction genre.  The material may range between hard core eroticism or fetishism to much more mild "Coming of age" romantic soft erotic material.

• Critiques and Literature:  This category is most pronounced in its emphasis on text first and foremost.  The genre is composed of the analytical critiques type books and the creative literature type books.  The critical analysis and critiques may be anything between the orthodox and scholarly reviews to exhibiting pronounced extremities, covering strange and weird subjects that are normally not in considered to be suitable subjects of in-depth analysis.  The critiques segment undoubtedly resembles the "zine" culture of the United States, as its pronounced propensity toward orientating the publication around strange and weird subject matter and its inclination to present in a style abundant of humor and satire.  The literature segment of the genre may involve anything between original novel writing to short essays and poetry.  Some overlap with the fan club genre and this genre has been identifiable.

• Mecha/Military:  Any book that places its primary attention on mecha and/or military elements (i.e. uniforms).  Originally a part of the critiques genre, this category became more or less independent thanks to the growth in the popularity of certain anime shows that featured mecha (large mechanical devices that include, but are not limited to, large humanoid shaped robot war machines), and because of the growth in enthusiasm over "survival games" (Japanese version of American splat balls). 

CIRCLES  

Doujinshi circles:  
     Any group or organization that collaborates in publishing doujinshis.  Commercial enterprises and corporations would not be regarded as doujinshi circles because the term doujinshi determines that the publication essentially be non-commercial in nature and the effort be part of a hobby.  While many US comic book publishing companies may appear to be nothing more then a grotesquely oversized egotistic self-serving doujinshi publishers, the fact that they act unprofessional or that they are financially mismanaged does not qualify them to be seriously considered doujinshi circles.  As stated elsewhere, by employing the title 田ircle・ the implication is that the membership in the group is voluntary and the degree of personal involvement is a matter of personal discretion.  

Different types of circles:  
     Circles are usually categorized by the type of material they put out at the Comic Market, but this can change drastically from time to time. Therefore I believe that categorizing circles by their structure and form is more understandable and allows useful generalizations regarding their activities.  
  

• Personal:  A Personal circle is exactly that, but it doesn't mean there is only one person running it.  Usually the term applies to those circles that publish the material of one author, so there might be numerous individuals involved in support activities.  Established personal circles tend to last a very long time.

• Partnerships and studios:  These are really nothing more then an extension of the personal circle.  Partnership and studio circles are a small number of authors that are close to each other, work together, and pool their resources.  The ones that last the longest tend to be the ones with very few authors involved (2 to 3), or the ones in which the members share some sort of specific attribute in their creativity (i.e. an artistic style or regional background). 

• Memberships:  A circle where the members were gathered together for no specific purpose other then to combine their creative talents.  Memberships circles were once very common in the days when the doujinshi market was not as large and the infrastructure necessary to causally operate small circles (i.e. accommodating printers and doujinshi conventions) was still very much out of reach.  Many membership circles spanned the entire country.  Large numbers of authors were needed to help keep the individual burden for offset printing costs small and manageable.  Some membership circles went further by offering special reader memberships, effectively facilitating its own doujinshi marketplace.  But as the interest in doujinshis grew and the attendance at doujinshi conventions exploded, smaller and easier to manage doujinshi operations took advantage of the infrastructure that was created.  As the need for special reader memberships evaporated with this dramatic growth in the market, membership circles quickly lost ground.  Today membership doujinshi are considered extinct. 

• Thematic ad hoc associations  This is a circle where the members were gathered for some specific purpose, implying that the circle has a specific thematic orientation.  These ad hoc circles are similar to membership circles in structure, but they tend to be smaller, far more nimble, and spontanious.  Many ad hoc circles are formed every year over a specific anime and/or manga work, but few survive.  As time passes by, the ad hoc circles tend to either transform into partnerships and studios as individuals drop out and the members become further consolidated, or the circle itself ceases to exist. 

School affiliated manga clubs  These circles and clubs are very similar to membership circles, with its tradition of embracing a wide variety of styles and content, with one crucial difference.  The organization is affiliated somehow to a school, and therefore the membership of the circle remains limited to the local student body.  The content of school affiliated manga clubs can vary dramatically depending on the characteristics of that school, but most limit themselves to publishing innocuous material compared to other doujinshis that are available elsewhere.  This does imply the books be boring and mundane all the time.  The books that are put out by manga clubs affiliated to art schools and certain technical schools are quite provocative in their own right.  Traditionally school affiliated manga clubs are the places where many authors are baptized into the world of doujinshis, but even this is changing with the explosive growth of the community itself. 

Doujinshi conventions: 
     A convention where individual doujinshi circles gather together to sell their publications to the attending public. The conventions are usually held in exhibition halls, convention centers, and any other roofed open spaces, and most of them offer tables and chairs for use by the circles.  Doujinshi conventions are not very similar to science fiction and comic book conventions.[3]  The attendees are not encouraged to stay at any specific near-by hotels; the primary emphasis is on facilitating the exchange of doujinshis, most conventions discourage the resale of used doujinshis, and the entire convention is configured around those that publish books as a hobby instead of a commercial enterprise (most doujinshi conventions do not allow corporate or commercial entities to compete against doujinshis circles in the sale of books).  Hence In fact in some ways the similarities are limited to the dealers・room in US conventions. 
     It should be noted that all doujinshi conventions added together do not possess a monopoly on accommodating doujinshi circles. Science fiction conventions, otaku orientated flee markets, and other numerous events also feature some circles, but the number and selection of circles attending is small compared to doujinshi conventions. 

Administrative characteristics of doujinshi conventions: 
     Initially almost all doujinshi conventions were privately run by a cooperative of motivated individuals that operated the convention voluntarily and as a non-profit enterprise.  These have been referred to as circle sponsored conventions because the operators share with the circles the mentality towards the doujinshi community overall as being avocational, and consequently tend to be non-profit in operation.  Not all operators of doujinshi conventions publish doujinshi themselves, but a significant number of them do so. 
 Some savvy doujinshi printers realized that there would be a lot of money to be made out of running conventions.  Not only could they gain revenue off of directly managing the convention in the form of administrative and service fees, they could also hope to gain from additional doujinshi printing business created by encouraging more doujinshis to be published.  Various incentive programs and discounts have been offered by printers/convention operators to circles for doing business with their sister organizations.  These business-run conventions are usually referred to as corporate sponsored conventions or simply corporate conventions. 
     The two forms of doujinshi conventions continue to co-exist today.  Many circles are not pleased with the blatant commercialism exhibited by corporate convention operators.  Fears remain regarding the tendencies of the corporate operators・over-eagerness for profit security and their pandering to regulative elements that might become an impediment to predictable revenue.  Despite this, non-profit, circle sponsored conventions continue to thrive today and, in fact, the largest of all doujinshi conventions, the Comic Market, is still considered to belong in this category. 

Thematic characteristics of doujinshi conventions: 
     Doujinshi conventions generally fall into four categories regardless of size, location, or administrative characteristics. Naturally large conventions are more common to large population centers, but conventions of all forms and thematic characteristics are held continuously throughout Japan every weekend and all of them belong to one or numerous categories supplied below. 
 

• General:  This category includes any doujinshi conventions that do not specialize in the orientation of circles that are participates.  Most general doujinshi conventions represent a collection of circles that are from the local region where the convention is being held.  Less then half a dozen regularly scheduled general doujinshi conventions are considered to be nationwide conventions that draw a significant number of circles from all over Japan.  The size of general conventions can range anywhere between 20 to 20,000 circles. 

• Genre specific:  Any doujinshi convention that attempts to specialize in the selection of doujinshis offered, excluding the original fiction genre.  The specification of the genre may range between simple genre designation (such as men's original and adapted erotic fiction), down to the most narrow and selective designation, (such as doujinshi publications based on a  specific character from a particular anime show (e.g. Aerith from the Sony Playstation game "Final Fantasy 7".  The more specific conventions tend to employ the description as being something or another "only event" such as a "Lana Turner Only Event"  Some small genre specific conventions are more like social functions that resemble the casual gathering of fans, and the sale of doujinshi are secondary.  In some extreme cases, the organizers of these smaller events will book the event inside a restaurant or a dining hall.

• Original fiction:  Technically original fiction specific doujinshi conventions fall under the category of genre specific conventions, but the qualitative characteristics of the convention differs substantially enough from all other types of conventions that it must be treated separately.  In addition, by defining itself as one that hosts only original fiction, it leaves itself open to various types of sub-genres within the original fiction genre frame work.

• Medium specific:  A doujinshi convention that is specific to the medium.  Currently, the only realistic and practical alternative to books as a doujinshi medium is computer software.  There was a time when garage kits were considered an extension of doujinshis, but vigorous commercialization and entry of corporate entities have drawn the world of garage kits away from the ideals of avocationalism.  While the garage kit community is still associaterd to the doujinshi community, many would agree that the two have become fundamentally different communities today.

 Footnotes: 
1.  The phenomenon in which the rise in the marginal cost of production is consistently less then the growth in the marginal revenue.  Certain items are cheaper to produced in bulk as opposed to produced in small numbers. 
2.  So far I have never seen a doujinshi exactly like the one used here as an example, but I have a copy of a very similar one.  A collection of one doujinshi author's work which includes a Rumiko Takahashi characters cross over with Ultraman Seven (non-erotic comic), various ideas for a Rumiko Takahashi characters cross over with Bladerunner (illustrations), Project A-Ko/The Fly cross over (short comedy), original erotic comic, articles, and etc.  So I wasn't grabbing rabbits out of thin air. 
3.  The term actually used by the Japanese is doujinshi tenjisokubaikai, which translates to "an exhibition of doujinshis where the books are for sale at the same time."  So far, I would argue the English word "convention" best represents in English the functions that are part of a tenjisokubaikai.