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Doujin, or fan-made merchandise, is big business in Japan. Nearly half a million people will descend upon a Tokyo convention center from Dec. 29 to 31 for Comic Market, a twice-annual exposition of unofficial creations. At this Comic-Con for fanzines you’ll find creative work based on popular comics, TV shows and movies, plus wholly original indie stuff. These die-hard fans’ output encompasses every creative medium imaginable: You can buy fan-made manga, music CDs, game software, tchotchkes, clothing and figures.
Many of these works of graphical fanfiction are based on characters from popular videogames. But at Comic Market, you’ll also encounter fanzines devoted to the hobby of gaming itself. What’s remarkable about some of these thin volumes, besides the level of intricate detail lavished on them, is how obsessively minute the subject matter can be. One might be devoted to cataloging all of the canceled games for a particular obscure game machine. Another might take a deep dive into every detail about a certain game.
“The truth about who made the video games I loved — and how they were made — was no longer accessible,” said “Zekuu,” a creator of doujin zines who runs a “circle” (group of like-minded fans) called Game Area 51, in an e-mail. (Due to the underground nature of doujin, which often appropriate and remix copyrighted material, creators almost exclusively use pen names.)
Zekuu’s first book, Video Game Chronicle 1: Kiki Kaikai, was the result of a decade’s worth of on-and-off research into the obscure arcade game. At this year’s Comic Market, he will release a book devoted entirely to the work of Shigeki Toyama, the designer who created, among other things, the ships in the game Xevious.
“The books I publish contain information found nowhere else,” said Zekuu. “I receive it by speaking directly with the people who produced the actual games.... My personal dream is that as many people as possible gain new insights and rediscover the joys of retro games through my books.”
Read on for more examples of the doujin magazines that catalog the obsessions of Japan’s most devoted gaming fans.
All photos: Ariel Zambelich/Wired
