While I was in Japan I had the good fortune to meet a number of people who were involved in the creation of fan circle or doujin manga, anime and games. These circles and the often very professional fan works they publish are a phenomenon that is important to understanding Japanese popular culture so I asked one if I could interview her about her experience. The interview was conducted over email in December of 2011, January and Februrary of 2012. I sent her questions, she sent back answers, and I edited them into this dialogue which she then checked and added to. In my editing I tried to keep her distinctive voice, but did edit for grammar where confident in her meaning. In some cases I have added explanations that are [in brackets and italicized.] I have kept her identity secret at her request.
How did you get interested in manga, anime and games?
SA: I was surrounded and grew up with lots of anime, games and manga since I was born in 1984. So it is a difficult question to answer, but it has been a kind of “natural environment” for me to have them in my life.
I do, however, clearly remember when I became fascinated by doujinshi (self or fan published manga.) It was purely by chance that I bought a doujinshi called “anthology comics” which was distributed by a big company and sold in a normal bookstore. I liked Neon Genesis Evangelion at that time. I thought the doujinshi was an original Evangelion manga. That was how I discovered the existence of doujin (fan circle) world!
After that, I started to try making my own doujinshi manga and novels based on my favorite manga and anime, for example Rurouni Kenshin and Houshin Engi. Both of them were serial manga available in the magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. Weekly Shonen Jump is a very famous Japanese weekly magazine for young boys.
But, at that time I didn’t make fan-books or goods because I thought my skill was not enough to do them. I also didn’t have any money to make them, and I didn’t have a circle because I was just 11 or 12 years old. Instead I practiced writing novels and drawing manga over and over.
How did you join a doujinshi circle?
SA: In my case, I didn’t join an existing circle. I had an accidental meeting with my future doujin partner at a “comic market,” a type of doujin event which we call “comiket”. [The most important Comiket is in Tokyo, but there are also local comic markets in other citites.] We got along well from our first meeting. So we organized our own circle and started that.
I think that those who make doujin content prefer to create their own circles by themselves rather than joining existing circles. There can be a kind of recruitment or invitation by members of existing circles, but almost no one asks to join an existing circle. This is because most doujin people are very shy and they want to keep their own world. So I think one of a doujin people’s weak points is sociability.
In the typical doujinshi, there are 2 or 3 people, at most 4 or 5 people in a circle. Sometimes circles cooperate with each other. For example some circles will make a joint investment to publish a doujinshi collection called “anthology comic”. In other cases, they might jointly organize a fan fiction event related to a particular manga or anime etc.
The exception is circles of costume players (cosplay circles); there are many that have more than ten people as members, because if those circles want to imitate all the characters in a game or manga, they need many people for role-playing. Cosplay circles not only attend events organized by publishers (just like the one you saw in Uzumasa Eiga-Mura), but sometimes organize photo sessions by themselves.
What sort of work did it do in the doujin? What sorts of activities were you involved in with the circle? Did you go to any comic markets? Did it have a focus? Is it still going?
SA: The main purpose and object was “Moe.” As with many other circles, we imagined our own world or scenes, and we developed those aspirations into a piece of work by ourselves. We shared those “moe” with our friends and fans of our circle. That was our satisfaction.
Many of those who became involved in the circle’s activities and customers of doujin works are tired with human relations or cannot fit well socially, having a feelings of loneliness or even mental illness. I think they feel that this kind of feeling is acceptable when they are involved in doujin activities; in a doujin they can find the place to live. I didn’t intend to make my circle for that reason, but it seems that our circle became a place like that – including many of my friends who helped our circle, and even I myself felt that way.
Many of the circles are developed with no thought of profit. Doujin people who can earn money from their regular or part-time jobs can put their money to doujin activities, but our high school didn’t allow us to have part-time jobs. That meant that if we did not make a profit, we couldn’t continue our activities, so we had to make our “business” profitable. Not only creating doujin works, but also thinking about profitable business was my role in the circle. It was great fun for me.
Can you tell me more about how doujin members are “tired with human relations”?
SA: This question is difficult, too. I think, generally, young people in all the world have the same kind of problem. But in Japan, I think that “Yutori-sedai” (the generation of yutori education) is very sensitive. This generation includes me and younger people. They are called “yutori-sedai” because they have had a cram-free education.
What did you do in the circle?
SA: I think you told me you wrote the scripts for games – is that right? What sorts of games were they?* I was a manager and a writer. As for writing scripts for games, yes, I was indirectly asked to write a scenario for a digital game. That project was inspired by the other games which were popular among otaku (serious fans) at that time. I wrote two stories: one was R18 [restricted to over 18] and the other one was mainly a “moe” story. But that original R18 game was not so popular among fujoshi (yaoi fandom.) I didn’t even play that original game, so I do not know the details.
Our circle also made some simple browser-games with some illustrations and texts (visual novel games.) We also launched an RPG for PC, but I do not know the details about that since different people specialized in different things in our circle. My partner was good at programming and computer graphics, so he worked on the games.
How did your circle distribute games? Did you distribute your games?
SA: It was through comiket (comic markets) and HP. [HP is short for Home Page meaning that they distributed through the web.]