So apparently a few people on that 2ch site are kind of angry at doujin circle Hachimitsu Kuma-san over a recent job posting on the circle’s site as well as on their mixi.

In essence, they are looking for someone to do odd jobs for them, basically filling in whatever need they have at the moment. A few more details:
*Must live within an hour of Omiya city in Chiba prefecture.
*Must be able to be on call even after midnight on days off.
*Will work for free. (this part is only mentioned on the mixi posting.)

Sounds like a dream job, right?

Well, apparently those nay-sayers at 2ch don’t think so. What a bunch of negative nancies! They’ve even gone so far as to post a lot of copy/pastes making some pretty harsh allegations about Hachikuma-san’s business practices, but you can find those on your own, or I’m sure some other blogger will post them as The Absolute Truth, cause 2ch kopipe is never wrong. Anyway, any of you folks out there thinking of applying?!

(via katoyu–)

Very minor news since I have a bit of spare time: As of this Monday, doujin chain Melonbooks has changed from their old and busted paper + stamp point card to a much fancier solid plastic card with barcode. Instead of 500y/point, 20 points for 500y off, it’s 500y/25 points, 1000 points for 1000y off. If you can’t crunch those numbers in your head, that just means the numbers got bigger now that they don’t have to stamp each point manually. Honestly, I’m normally not much of a Melonbooks kind of guy, but it’s really the only choice for new doujin goods I have here in Kyoto. Also, this post would be totally non-notable, but I heard reports from one guy that they kind of sprung this on him, and that they didn’t transfer his old points to his new card, so if you’re going and you aren’t super proactive about getting Japanese store clerks to actually speak to you instead of mumbling under their breath because they don’t think you speak The Language, have your old point cards and some form of ID with your age on it ready. (apparently, the new cards are also used to check if you’re of age, not that they ever actually do that in Japan for anything. except for taspo :argh:) You also get 25 points if you register by 3/31, and you get 50 points whenever your birthday rolls around. You have until 1/31 of next year to transfer points at a store, and after that you have until 1/31 of 2011 to contact support and transfer points that way.

Minor other notes that will probably affect exactly no one reading this blog: if you have online points and want to get a point transfer certificate, you have until the end of the month to order them. Starting 4/1, you’ll be able to transfer online points to the new card system. Also, handing over your personal information is optional, but all they seem to jot down is your birthday for age checking+point bonus, it’s not like they’re making photocopies of your gaijin card or something.

Saw these this week and thought they were interesting:

• Pulp’s guide to Manga Hell, some of which you might be familiar with if you listened to AWO enough. Also proves that Jason Thompson has read so many manga he’s incapable of writing in anything other than list form, like me.
• Japanese video blogger Akibatsuu interviews ZUN, who is drunk, and famed Touhou doujin artist Randou, who is a white guy(!!!). It’s kind of surprising since a lot of people seem to think ZUN is a racist for some reason, even before that one other blog was popular.
• Billionaires, a boy’s-love-style biography of the founders of Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle, and how Gates-chan is so moe~
• Yoshii-san is apparently a character in Battlefield: Bad Company.
• Takarazuka Revue Phoenix Wright rehearsal
  Yeah.

As many of you may know, Reitaisai moved from the West-4 hall at Tokyo Big Sight last year, where from all reports the event was crowded and ridiculous and chaotic beyond anyone’s imagination, to the larger East 4/5/6 halls this year.

What was not announced was that the Reitaisai organizers also rented the East 3 hall, for the purpose of line control. Yes, they rented a 3.5 million yen/day hall for the purpose of making the event less of a living hell by lining up the first x thousand people to show up inside the event hall. Upon discovering this hall, I felt a little less bad about having to spend $19 on an only-event catalog. I took it somewhat easy, getting up at around 6 and arriving at the hall at a little past 7, and just barely made it in the nice climate controlled room where many thousands of other Touhou fans were, many of whom probably were hanging around the Big Sight all night.

As at all doujin events, there is a page in the Reitaisai catalog and all related materials that states that you SHOULD NOT line up overnight, or even get there really early in the morning, suggesting that you instead arrive at an hour when normal people will be awake, in other words, when you won’t bother them. Of course, a lot of people don’t actually follow this rule, creating tensions between the rule-breaking overnighters (徹夜組), the on-the-fence first trainers (始発組), and the rest of us plebes who more or less follow the rules and wish grave harm upon the first group and mild harm to the second.

Most conventions state that there will be some sort of vague penalties for showing up early. I’m fairly sure Comiket isn’t actually able to follow through with this threat, and they’re already pretty well equipped to deal with the crowd. Reitaisai last year, on the other hand, didn’t hand out any penalties, and the event was pretty chaotic. Sunshine Creation was fairly well known for actually dealing these out, moving some people to the back of the line, or I believe in one case making the overnight folks shovel snow if they wanted to keep their place in line. Of course, this can always backfire, as apparently at last Comic1, the 100 or so nerds who were cordoned off as a penalty by 5 staff members decided that their collective inertia could not be stopped by these 5 staff members if they all moved together, and basically just plowed into the event hall. tsk tsk.

Back to Retaisai, though. Like I said, I just barely made it in east-3, and I could hear people around me mumuring about penalties and whatnot, some calling the building we were in a ペナルティほいほい, “Penalty Hoihoi”, a play on the Japanese for “roach motel”, “Gokiburi hoihoi.”

Well, it turns out they were right! At 9:45, 15 minutes before the event started, the periodic announcement by the cheerful female announcer reminding us to please buy a catalog if we hadn’t yet was replaced by another announcer, this one male, and much less cheerful. He informed us folks in the hall that we all probably knew that lining up early was expressly forbidden. In classic Japanese chewing-out style, he let us know how much of an annoyance we must have been, partying outside all night when there’s a hospital with a giant cancer ward just next door, and that we should probably feel bad about ourselves. Oh, and there would be some changes made to the line.

Without even a “have a nice day”, the PA clicked, and everyone went from being dead silent to excitedly talking to their friends. The guys around me seemed half-scared but half-thrilled, because we sort of followed the rules by showing up after the first train, and even if we did get hit by a penalty, we had already showed up late enough that it wouldn’t reaaally make much of a difference.

At 9:55, our line, 6 wide and 90 deep, and only our line, started to move. We all started freaking out, wondering if we actually were going to be the first regular attendees in. They lined us up right in front of the entryway to the event, and held us there for a little bit, telling us that we shouldn’t run under any circumstances, that we should have our catalogs out, and that we should have our shoelaces tied. When 10 came around, everyone started clapping, as you normally do at these events.

Oh, except for the people who had stayed overnight at the Big Sight. Apparently they weren’t too thrilled about the entry order to the event of East 3 being completely reversed.

as they say on 2ch, 徹夜ざまあ wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Anyway, I ought to go now. Need to install my Seirensen demo!

After some twitter back-and-forths, I’ve decided to try to do a few posts where I introduce some of the stuff I picked up last Comic Market (C77), mostly just to prove to people that you can spend over $500 on interesting doujinshi and have basically none of it be pornographic. (Nozomu Tamaki pushed his ero book on me and who am I to deny that man a sale?)

Of course, to start off this series of posts, I’m going to basically mess up my entire theme by starting with a professionally published book from 2007. I did, however, purchase this book at C77, and it’s the closest one to my laptop, so I’m going to start with the first volume of Manga Ronso Boppatsu (マンガ論争勃発, “Manga Debate Eruption”, alternatively “The Manga Criticism War Erupts!”), authored and edited by Kaoru Nagayama, author of Eromanga Studies　(East Press), and the journalist Takashi Hiruma.

Manga Ronso Boppatsu is a collection of nearly fifty short (2-6 page) articles on a variety of topics, most of which center around a single expert or critic’s thoughts on the topic at hand. The authors of the book state that the idea behind the book is to listen to various positions on each of these hot topics, such as the globalization of manga, creators’ rights, and the limiting of free expression in manga, so that constructive discussion can start taking place rather than the mindless, polarized shouting matches that’re all too easy to fall into when debating these issues.

I ended up getting this book (and its sequel) thanks to a tip from Vertical’s Ed Chavez, who sent me off in the direction of the far-left corner of the Big Sight’s East-3 hall, where I found a rather large table staffed by just one guy, who I assume was one of the authors of the book. The placement of their booth was a bit odd to me, as it was down in one of the doujinshi-selling halls (as opposed to the upstairs industry hall), but up against the wall where non-doujinshi products like markers and corn dogs are sold.

This was actually a rather appropriate place to stick these guys, as while their book is released by a professional publisher (Micro Magazine), the subjects covered in the volume either deal directly with doujinshi events like Comiket, or are extremely relevant to the ideals embodied by these events themselves: Spreading manga culture and providing a space where individuals can distribute works of free expression. I’m not just making this stuff up, either–the Comic Market Preparation Committee and the National Doujinshi Event Liaison Group are both prominently given credit for cooperation right next to the authors.

I mentioned that Manga Ronso Boppatsu is the closest book to my laptop, and there’s actually a reason for that; it’s basically the only thing I’ve been turning to as of late when I feel like educating myself on manga. While I’m still working through it, the articles I’ve read so far are all very informative and provide thoughtful views on whatever topic is at hand. Of course, there is a trade-off to gathering the breadth of experts that the book jams into a little over 200 pages, and that is that a relative lack of depth in any given article. However, the articles are all excellent primers on their respective topics given by some of the most respected individuals in their fields. Since it’d be nearly impossible to give my thoughts on each individual article, I’m simply going to spend the rest of this post below the cut translating each article’s title and the primary individual consulted or interviewed (when applicable), and strongly suggest the volume (available for purchase at Amazon and bk1.jp, among other places) to anyone with an interest in a mix of solid journalism and on-the-ground, current commentary on the state of manga and doujinshi.

Chapter 1: Manga is Spreading Across the World

The Current State of Manga Culture in Chinese-Speaking Regions¹ – Au Yeung Yu Leung, otaku researcher

The Deep, Broad Universe of Manga in Korea – Sun Jung-Woo, manga critic

Japanese Manga in Thailand – Nekoshima Rei, manga author

The State of the Medium and Regulation in the USA – Odagiri Hiroshi, American comic researcher

Why Anime and Manga are Popular in France – Etienne Barral, journalist

In Spain, Manga Represents Japan

Let’s Guide Foreign Fans to Japan – Okada Maki, Japanese Resident Ambassador to Denmark

Manga Was a Worldwide Niche Industry – Nakano Haruyuki, manga researcher

Unauthorized Translations of Manga and Anime Found Online

Asian Piracy

Get Your Politician Involved – Sakai Masayoshi, associate professor at Waseda University GITS

What’re METI’s Policies?

Chapter 2: Doujin Culture: Sustaining the Japanese Content Industry

Doujinshi / The Manga Authors from Comiket – Misaki Naoto, doujinshi researcher

The Charm of Doujinshi Events

Testing Out Dispatched Editorial Departments – Nakamura Kimihiko, member of the Comitia executive committee

Do All Manga Lovers Come to Comiket? – Fudetani Yoshiyuki, co-representative of Comic Market, editor

Chapter 3: Manga and Copyright

The 1999 Pokemon Doujinshi Crackdown Incident　- Sakata Fumihiko, Gataket representative

The “Doraemon – Final Episode” Doujinshi Incident

Is This a Black and White Situation? – Takekuma Kentaro, author, editor

The Meaning of Manga Plagiarism Verification Sites

Lessen the Scope of Copyright and Enforce it Strongly – Shirata Hideaki, assistant professor in the social sciences department of Hosei Univ.

Let Copyright Holders Decide – Matsumoto Leiji, manga author

Chapter 4: Expression’s Ground Zero

The Front Line of Censorship

From the Desk of a Professional Eromanga Editor – Shiyoama Yoshiaki, eromanga editor

Manga Authors’ Voices – Tamaki Nozomu, Yamada Sansuke, Hoshiai Hiro, manga authors

The Josei Crisis

Chapter 5: Obscenity and Harm

The “Harmful Books” Controversy

The Beginning of Doujinshi Censorship

The Day Otaku Moved Government – Nishikata Kouichi, former representative of the Manga Defense League

The Yokohama Conference and AMI – Dan Kanemitsu, translator

The Shobunkan Trial – Yamaguchi Takashi, lawyer

Higurashi / School Days / The Tokyo Trade Center

Chapter 6: The Current State of Censorship and Self-Censorship

Determining Harmfulness and Zoning　- Aoyama Ayako, section chief for youth affairs for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government

Self-Censorship and Divided Exhibition

What is CERO Inspection?

Chapter 7: Freedom and Censorship

What Was the Virtual-Ken? (The Investigative Committee on the Protection of Children from Harms Brought on by the Virtual Society) – Maeda Masahide, professor in the college of general education at Tokyo Metropolitan University

What is Radical Feminism? – Nakasatomi Hiroshi, associate professior in the administration and social sciences department of Fukushima University

Manga Does Not Induce Crime – Saito Tamaki, psychiatrist, critic

Do the Problems of Expression and Censorship Oppose Each Other? – Ito Go, manga critic

Are Symbols and Reality Connected? – Ueno Chizuko, profesesor in the graduate school of humanities and sociology at Tokyo University

Expression Must Not be Restricted by Law – Chiba Tetsuya, manga author

Chapter 8: The Mass Media and Manga Culture

Misunderstanding and Prejudice

Media Literacy and the General Public – Ootani Akihiro, journalist

Otaku and the Media

Chapter 9: Manga’s Freedom

Being Prepared to Risk Your Life Over Freedom of Expression – Satonaka Machiko, manga author

Leniency in Japanese Culture – Azuma Hiroki, critic, philosopher

The Future That the “Anything Goes” Ideal Holds – Ichikawa Kouichi, Yasuda Kahoru Comic Market co-representatives

1. the term “manga” in Japanese can be used to denote comics of any national origin, and while these articles are focused around Japanese comics, each country’s domestic works are also frequently discussed

Source: the 2ch thread “Touhou is wasting the limited resources of doujin authors” via 2channel matome makuri via kransom’s twitter.

Toranoana – Number of doujin titles of major works added from 2009/1 to 2009/12:

It also says there were 154 (21%) female-oriented titles for Vocaloid, 265 (49%) for Haruhi, and 139 (70%) for Macross. Not sure why there’s nothing given for the rest – there’s also no “other” number, and obviously yaoi titles seem to go to other stores, so this isn’t really a complete picture of the otaku world.
I kind of want to know what’s in the other 7 Queen’s Blade titles…

In the name of trying to keep up that “cultural exchange” theme, I’ll introduce an appropriate member of one of our favorite literary genres, the Touhou doujinshi.

New Hori-ZUN 2, 44p, by circle ddiction (http://ddiction.org/index_en.html)

New Hori-ZUN 2, part of a series whose first volume I totally forgot to ask my bro @nforza26 to send me, is an attempt at an exciting and highly educational Touhou-themed English textbook series based on New Horizon, an actual exciting and highly-educational English textbook I am completely unfamiliar with.

As you may recognize from some of the e-famous artist names, several of the authors of this book are actually American, which is completely different from being Japanese, and yet it is one of the higher quality doujin I have seen!

The authors have mastered difficult doujin techniques such as 4komas, Arial, having a circle name even though you’re the only member of the circle, and Yume Nikki references.

However, as far as textbooks go it’s a little undirected. The text (the usual character comedy Touhou lends itself to, although decent enough) is more complex than volume 1, but how will the reader know if he understands all of it? I think there should be more exercises. Of course, the less useful it is the more like the actual Japanese school system it is, so either way they win.

You can find this circle at the upcoming Winter Comiket. In the meantime, the authors can be found on the Internet.

Fushigi no kuni no Marisa (Marisa in Wonderland), by circle COSMIC FORGE (http://www.cosmicforge.net/)

Available via mail order from Manga Pal!

(Japanese translation available at tsurupeta.info)

That would be a great name for a VIP translation blog if anyone wants to start one. I’ll suffice just to translate this one post.

I was going to Yokohama for work today, and stopped at a conbini in Tokyo– and this is what I saw!

319 Anonymous 2011/01/04(火) 21:26:59 ID:jXJ5/ky50

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeynow why is Manga Home in the adult section? No porn no violence, I promise you that it’s harmless no matter who you are or where you read it! It’s a peaceful 4-koma magazine!

This is a joke, right?

321 Anonymous 2011/01/04(火) 21:29:28 ID:EcGFqTbO0

>>319
You can’t rearrange shelves in the middle of the day as a joke, right?

320 Anonymous 2011/01/04(火) 21:28:54 ID:0r4OysEp0

I only go to Tokyo to visit Akiba but the 7/11 at the station looks like this

327 Anonymous 2011/01/04(火) 21:38:46 ID:rpN3dJPr0

The regulators are obviously selling all non-G-rated comics as 18+ only.
See, Jump’s dangerous too.

333 Anonymous 2011/01/04(火) 21:44:03 ID:jXJ5/ky50

I was depressed for just a moment, but the next moment rage started bubbling up… seeing Manga Home and Manga Club, totally unrelated to porn, completely peaceful and wholesome magazines, moved to the adult corner is truly sickening.

Are we living in a world where people want to see speech regulated like this? If that’s the case, we need to stop kidding around.

345 Anonymous 2011/01/04(火) 21:54:28 ID:aB0sC4F80

Anything that looks like >>316 is clearly just the conbini run loose

It’s an overreaction.
Whoever can should talk to the manager and put the comics back in their original place

Steps to attending Comiket:
1. Go to Japan.
2. Take the train to Kokusaitenjijouseimon. The rest is obvious.

There will be about 100,000 people ahead of you in line who all arrived at 5 AM, but don’t bother with that and just come at 10.¹ Do get a SuICa so you don’t have to stand in the ticket machine line. Get a map, or else you’ll get lost:

Mine is a bad example, because I highlighted every single circle in the catalog with an interesting picture (or an especially silly name) and then went straight past most of them.

Day 1 is relatively relaxed, mostly being anime/manga magazine/video game fan comics without any of the major attractions (male-oriented works, female-oriented works, Touhou). I managed to walk around with a group (kransom, shii, world famous chiptune artist Chibi-Tech) without getting lost, which is impossible in the later two days.

There is nothing interesting about the process of buying things, which is all we did, so here’s some things that were bought:

From upper left: a Mazinger comic of some sort by blue labyrinth (also did a newer Shin Mazinger Impact comic that’s not as good), a Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou copy-book, a short Aria book by CramNuts, an SRW book by otentomaru, an ICO anthology that I can’t be bothered to actually read, and a Yotsuba! book by, apparently, Do well!!!.

otentoumaru is a great circle, but half of their books are Sanger/Irui and the other half are Sanger x Irui, and it’s impossible to tell which from the covers, so make sure to check inside first. Also, a few of these turned out to be reprints because I forgot to ask which was the new work.²

I’ve been checking catalogs for a few years and there were always a few YKK circles, but these days it seems to be down to one or two, so it’ll probably be gone entirely in the future. Unless it’s reduced to people doing increasingly strange joke comics like Lain.

For some reason Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei doujin exist but are universally very badly drawn.

Unfortunately never got a chance to visit cosplay, or do much of anything but walk around the East Halls all day for the entirety of the event. Maybe in the future… but do I really want to own any more doujin?

Shii’s report

I’m going to have to go back to my diary to confirm what I did on this day. … Apparently I did not actually write any coherent sentences in my diary when I was in Tokyo. Instead, I have scribbled the words “wait in line” and “Akiba”. This was the day I held everyone up by waiting in line at the VisualArt’s booth. Important lesson for future Comiket visitors: The best time to get in line for an industry booth is at 5am or 2pm. The worst time is at noon; this is when all the ronery otaku leave the artist’s halls and decide it’s time to stand by themselves for some Nanoha goodness. Anyway, I waited in line for 3 hours to pick up a CD for my friend Mike. Afterwards we all went to Yoshinoya for dinner. Did MVB mention that? No. OK.

Other exciting things. If you arrive at Comiket at 10 the line will be slowly vanishing as people file into the Big Sight. I imagine 10:30 is optimal arrival time if you don’t have any super important things to wait in line for. Also, if you don’t use some sort of software to plan what circles to visit, you are insane.

The Card Captor Sakura and Rozen Maiden selection in December 2010 was nothing to write home about, but there are good Azumanga/Yotsubato universe doujins that don’t get resold at Toranoana, so look out for those.

Impress your friends with Comiket knowledge!

1. The largest demographic at Comiket is 25-29 year old women. (s)
2. Comiket used to be ~75% female. More recently it has grown closer to 60% female. (s)
3. Pornography does exist at Comiket, but only consists of about 20% of the total amount of works. (s)
4. As is the case with anime and manga in general, hardcore/perverted works at Comiket are often drawn and published by women. (You can confirm this by walking around Comiket.)

Steps to succeeding at Comiket:
Repeat steps 1 and 2 until desired effect is achieved.

1. Unless you want to go to an industry booth. なのは完売
2. 新作 shinsaku

Source: unknown (Comiket staff?) via Yaraon

This time around the most interesting change is the new section for Tiger & Bunny, which was split out of “Anime (Sunrise)”, and starts out with an enormous 1109 circles; the rest of Sunrise was left with only 269 in the process. Since most of the other girls’-side genres – Reborn, Gundam, short stories and Hetalia – are down this year, I think we can assume their doujin will not feature Dragon Kid but instead gay dads, which I think is what that show is about according to Tumblr.

By the way, fanfiction (‘SS’ in Japanese and most of ‘FC(小説)’ at Comiket) seems to be very popular with fujoshi (including all my English-speaking friends), but I don’t know a single guy including myself who cares about it at all, even though I’ll happily read all kinds of amateurish comics. I’m sure there’s plenty of counterexamples, though.

In other news TYPE-MOON has almost double the circle count compared to where it’s been for years (presumably due to Fate/Zero), Leaf&Key continue to fade away and Touhou is still the most popular genre out there at 2670.

Mito city, 3/21/2010. Let’s reviving city with comic and good spirit!

In other news, Kodansha needs to stop pricing light novels in the BOX line at 1600 yen if they expect their customers to buy their books and still manage to eat on a daily basis.

also, while this post is still (relatively) fresh, Nichijo vol 4 is coming out on the 26th! Hopefully it’ll be more like volume 3 than volume 2!