Sure, feel free to contact me if you’d like to further discuss. Or maybe there will be some follow-up post in regards to doujinshi on this site. I’m RSSing you guys, so I look forward to it. Cheers!

I really appreciate this added perspective. This may require further discussion.

>>blacklotus

Amen, brother.

So doujinshis are sold at approx 550 yen each ($5.50 USD). The cost to print each doujin is 300 yen each ($3.00 USD). They also do a huge print run of 10,000 doujins. And the rest they do not sell at a particular event, they can sell at consignment via shops. I believe this model enables Japanese artists to create doujinshis cheaply and so widely.

One of my friends that did a doujinshi, I think she did a print run of 400 and it cost around $5 per book. I think she sells her doujins around $10-15 each. However I believe the hardest part is trying to sell all the books she has printed, break even, and make a profit compared to the cost. North American convention attendance are also very small. 43,000 in AX (USA) vs. 550,000 in Comiket (Japan).

From what I have heard from several friends also is that printing for doujinshis is very cheap in Japan. The printing technology is really advanced and affordable. In North America, you need to do a great deal of research to find a decent printer that will print at an affordable price (and small enough print run).

So right now there are alot of factors working against the North American doujin artist compared to the Japanese doujin artists. Perhaps as the North American doujin market grows over time as well as printing costs coming down, then more artists will do doujins. Right now, I see doujins as fairly risky in terms of returns as I see it as being difficult to break even on (both print costs and time). Hopefully this might change over time and more artists will embrace this medium. For now we’ll have to wait and see (being the pragmatic artist as I am).

Although I do try to enforce a policy of not “dumbing down” terminology, in an effort to encourage people to learn any new terms they might not be familiar with, as zalas pointed out these terms are actually proper names, and as such I’m not in a position to translate them even if I wanted to. Next time, some added links may be in order though.

>>hirohisa4president

I don’t doubt there’s at least a decent (no pun intended) market for Kojika, the reason it’s not getting released is fear of a backlash over the content, plain and simple.

>>Nayuki

This is really interesting. I wasn’t aware there was such a premium on this kind of publishing. I wonder how much of that is just logistics vs. supply and demand. I also don’t actually have a concrete sense of how much publishing doujinshi costs in the Other Country, but I’m sure they’re not selling at a loss. What sort of volume are we talking about here? I’m sure the cost per unit comes down if you’re printing several hundred.

And you can read all about Kodomo no Jikan at http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/industry-comments/2007-05-29/jason-deangelis-nymphet ;)

By the way, Seiya, I wanted to say I really appreciate you breathing some life back into this site. It’s one of my favorites to regularly check.

Other products and services have tangential “morality” issues which would make it – at best – exceedingly problematic to implement. And others rely on a completely different concept of copyright. Recently, a number of Japanese copyright holders have been cracking down on certain egregious abuses of their IP, so it’s not entirely that they do *nothing* about it.

I expect this current financial crisis to cut the western anime and manga industry to the quick, so there will be a lot of room for growth and change when it all blows over. And the audience is changing, rapidly. in five years the Beyblade kids will discover something else and it’ll be the Next Big Thing and some of them, will be the next SJ seres consumer.

In ten years, there’ll be a bigger audience and therefore more of a market. One hopes.

Cheers,

Erica

Hungry for Yuri? have some Okazu!
http://okazu.blogspot.com

But I do have to say that there ARE reasons as to why it’s taken so goddamn long to do it (if it actually does).

For one, the bishoujo game elements are so much more prevalent than the “regular” game elements in Sakura Taisen. For every 4 hours of gameplay you’ll spend at least 1 of those hours traipsing around the theater looking for LIPS choices. Of its gameplay melding, SakuTai is bishoujo game first, tactical game second. Most of the other “curiously Japanese” games that have made it here are usually the other way around.

There’s hope, though. NIS America and Atlus have done a great deal in making the environment less hostile to quirky Japanese games, and SEGA did release Valkyria Chronicles AND Yakuza 2 (with the latter being Japanese-only voice).

I can only wonder as to what they’ll do to the localization. It’ll be quite the task to properly localize a game that’s mostly talking and reading, esp. with regard to voice track.

Also, how well could such a “weird” game do when it’d be released at roughly the end of the PS2’s lifespan (and probably starting with Episode 5 to boot)?

And about #7 If i recall Sony has said they wouldn’t allow any 18+ games on their u.s. consoles so until sony u.s. will allow publishers to even release a/o games then having them from japan isnt going to happen,but the silver lining is ps3 u.s. & japan are same region so importing from japan an a/o rated ps3 game will still work on u.s. ps3 so the rule is sorta undermined ^.^;