Doujin

“Doujin” in Japan means people who share a hobby and in particular the products they make to sell at conventions such as Comiket, often without much profit. Doujinshi means print doujin works such as short manga (many of them fanworks and erotic in nature), but there are also many other types of doujin such as games (doujin soft), music, and even anime.

The groups are called “circles”, and it’s common for even solo artists to refer themselves this way.

Some quite popular artists got their start publishing doujin works, I’ll list here a few I like:

• Touhou Project: A long-running series of bullet hell games created by the solo developer/musician ZUN (circle Team Shanghai Alice). Known for very catchy music and a huge cast of cute girls. Touhou is by far the biggest doujin franchise, so big it has its own convention for doujin artists producing work based on Touhou.
• IOSYS: Music circle featured in the page video. They usually remix Touhou songs with very impressive video work.
• Ryukishi07Ryukishi07 and Yatazakura (circle: 07th Expansion), creators of the visual novel Higurashi When They Cry
• Type-Moon started was started as a doujin soft circle by illustrator Takashi Takeuchi, writer Kinoko Nasu, and two others. They released the visual novel Tsukihime, and later formed the company with the same name whose first published game was Fate/Stay Night.
• RAITA is a doujin artist whose sketch prompted creation of the visual novel Katawa ShoujoKatawa Shoujo
• ABe (illustrator)ABe (illustrator): Creator of Haibane Renmei, and unfinished doujinshi manga later adapted to anime.
• Clamp (manga artists): Group of four women known for the manga series Cardcaptor Sakura and character designs for Code Geass.

Works about doujin (whose authors likely were part of the scene themselves):

• Hiroyuki’s manga Doujin WorkDoujin Work
• Genshiken