Otaku2 – Doujinshi and Law

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This is something I have been thinking about recently. The manga industry has everything to gain from the dojinshi circles, for two reasons.

First, dojinshi has been fostered by the practice of the manga  editors as far back as the 1930’s, when the first prepublication magazines encouraged readers to send them their drawings, the best of which would then get published.  This trend has then continued after the WWII, during the reconstruction of Japan and the booming of manga as a sort of metamedia (in the word of Frederik Schodt). The dojinshi movement itself began to take shape in the 1960’s and came out in plain light in 1975 with the first Comic Market or Comiket.  This means that is has been created by and has grown within the context of the manga industry.

Second, the dojinshi art comes from the appropriation of pre-existing works, which all put together constitute a world of graphical and narrative references that shape the publics targeted by dojinshi and feeds the movement itself.  In a way, they extend the lives of the narrative universes created by professional mangas into another realm, that of hard-core fans, while the larger public moves from one series to ther other, as they come out, without looking back. They also intensify the process of reception by reworking the narrative meanings and reinterpret graphic languages. This means that they contribute in making part of the publics targeted by the industry particularly aware of the work that goes on behind a finished product. The dojinshi can be tought of as filters, which contribute to mediate between the public and the industry, by maintaining a sort of grass root base, which is connected to the larger public.  This connection is important and I think that dojinshi and their specific public are very much aware of it, as is testified by their understanding of the need to keep the industry alive and healthy.