MJ Feature: Doujinshi Goes Mainstream

[Floating_Sakura]

Doujinshi Goes Mainstream!?

I have had the experience of standing in line for two and a half hours for a single book. The longest time of the line up, from what I have heard, was three hours.

The book we were lined up for was Urobuchigen Fate/Zero Vol.1 'Dai Yoji Seihai Sensou Hiwa' (TYPE-MOON, 2006), which was first published during the end of 2006 for the 71st Comic Market. The company that published this book, TYPE-MOON isn't exactly a publisher, but a small-time game company. In addition to this, 4 years ago, it was simply an interest club. With free software invented for creating games, as well as the falling prices of CD-ROMs, it has becoming increasingly easy to make a computer game and packaged software by yourself or with a group. With that in mind, amateur circles that make games are increasing dramatically. This is how popular groups like TYPE-MOON rise.

Tsukihime, the romantic visual novel game by TYPE-MOON, has become a huge hit in the doujinshi community; so much that so it was adapted into an anime and caused an unprecedented revolution to the group. After legitimizing themselves as a company, TYPE-MOON released Fate/Stay Night as a general genre PC game. For two years in a row, it held the record of being the most popular PC game, besting even professional game developers. This quickly became the single biggest success story for any doujin Group.

Fate/Zero is a romantic action novel, which illustrates the events that leads up to Fate/Stay Night. The interesting part is that this novel is sold through doujinshi events and manga specialty stores, instead of a publishing or distribution company. Kara no Kyoukai, a novel by TYPE-MOON has become a Koudansha novel and has enjoyed great sales figures. In addition to this, it is a soon-to-be anime movie. The number of copies of Fate/Zero sold during the 3 days in the Comic Market had obviously surpassed the sales of many novels being sold in the bookstores. If TYPE-MOON wanted to, they could use a big company to sell their works through bookstores, but knowing both ways, they chose to sell their works through a doujin system distribution, almost as if they are returning to their roots. Even though their works aren't distributed throughout bookstores in the country, by using the Internet, their works have reached the hands of their readers well enough. In addition, since they don't have a middleman (such as a publishing company), they make maximum profit off of their works by releasing them through the “Doujin channels”. Critics have been predicting that, as Internet becomes more popular, regular channels of distribution – the system used since the beginning – will be bypassed. This novel was quietly released on the Internet, instead of using newer methods such as promotion.

Of course, these doujin channels are supported by doujinshi, which aren't sold in normal bookstores, but still have a huge market behind them. Last year in Akihabara, an 8-storey building specializing in doujin manga was built on the vacant lot in Denkigai Chuuou Douri, where Sato-Musen used to be. The "Comic Market (comike)" has achieved a great establishment in this type of marketing. It exists as a common center for Manga, Anime, game fans and it is the largest festival in Otaku culture. Currently, the festival is held during August and December, and in just 3 days, approximately 400,000 to 500,0000 people participate. As one of the events taking place in Tokyo Big Site, this event attracts the most customers.

Although the Comic Market is the greatest supporter of the anime/manga culture in Japan, one of the characteristics of this is that it isn't known universally. Comic Market 30 year's File---1975-2005 (Comic Market Junbikai-hen, Comiket, 2005) has written in details, about the secret to Comiket's great organization and development. This book, as the title says, is the record book of the Comiket, but contains so much more than just the history. I would definitely recommend this book if someone asks me for a book that illustrates the history of Otaku culture with different points of view. With diverse genres, outstanding scale and management, selling the major works as well as the minor ones, Comic Market has always been the place to experience every aspect of Otaku hobbies. In addition, since the Miiyazaki incident in 1989, TV has been reporting the comiket as if it were a place for a hotbed of criminals*, which becomes the viewpoint of the otaku society.

The birth of Comiket was one of the backgrounds of Mini Comic Boom during the late 60's and the early 70's, which aimed to hold the DIY-ish media privately. And those amateurs called otaku used it as a base for the growth of their unique culture, but during those 30 years of history, its characteristics and nature started to evolve. There isn't a book that describes the current Otaku culture yet, but a manga that relies on this subject is Genshiken (Kodansha, 2002-2006) by Kio Shimoku. There are many manga that illustrate otaku, but out of those stories that are written for otaku, this book is well balanced for all readers. It isn't too in-depth like the ones in the ‘80s, nor does it exhibit an “inferiority complex”. Although it is somewhat foggy, it illustrates the otaku living in the year 2000, who aren't so pessimistic.

To these Otakus, Doujinshi and Doujin Games are no longer a way to fight back the Media or a mean to build up their work for a major debut, but it emphasizes a sort of "style" when compared alongside commercial products. The limited editions of volumes 6 and 9 of Genshiken are printed in a way that imitates doujinshi. The situation is shifting, because while the works circulates mainly in the doujin Market, they are becoming TV anime, while there are commercial books that imitate doujinshi sold in mainstream bookstores.

*Masahiko's note: In those days, a TV reporter would say at Comiket, "There are 100,000 Miyazaki Tudomu."

Translated by bseeked
Proofed by Ishaan
Translated from Artscape