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Dōjinshi

: 同人誌 【どうじんし】
(n, self-published magazines; literally "publications for people of similar interests"; pronounced doh-o-jeen-shee)

Dōjinshi manga are non-professional and/or self published comics, and dōjin refers to any self-published work. Dōjinshi manga can be broken into two broad categories: fan-comics and original works. Fan-comics, much like fan-fiction, are based on established properties and created by fans of those properties. Original works are based on the dōjinshi-ka's (creator) original ideas. The only difference between mainstream manga and original dōjinshi is that the dōjinshi is not published by a publishing company; it is self-published by the dōjinshi-ka.

Dōjinshi is essentially amateur comic publishing, but not all dōjinshi-ka are amateurs. Many professional, published artists continue to self-publish dōjinshi in addition to their mainstream manga. These dōjinshi may be new original works that they chose not to (or are unable to) have published by a larger company. They can also be side-stories that the artists create for fans of their published works.

Many established artists started their careers as dōjinshi-ka. Yoshitoshi ABe's Haibane Renmei was based on one of his dōjinshi works.

A large amount of dōjinshi is pornographic in nature. It is very common for dōjinshi-ka to create sexually explicit stories using characters from established manga such as Sailor Moon, Gravitation, Read or Die, Please Teacher and so-on. Sometimes even the original creators produce pornographic dōjin side-stories to their published work.

Dōjinshi Circle: A group of dōjinshi-ka that work together, either co-creating projects or providing each other with support to work on their own projects. CLAMP was originally a Dōjinshi Circle.

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