The Japanese manga and anime industry is much more tolerant of derivative, fan-produced work than most American writers and producers are. (I don’t know the reason for this cultural difference.) In fact, many Japanese commercial graphic artists have come into the professional field from fandom, and it’s not uncommon for a professional to continue producing “fan” type work. Fan-produced manga is called “doujinshi.” THE OTAKU ENCYCLOPEDIA says “most professional manga artists respect this activity as the creative right of fans.” Quite a relaxed attitude toward copyright compared to what Western fandom lives with! There’s an annual doujinshi convention in Tokyo, Comiket, which draws over half a million people per year. The mind boggles.
In an interview in THE OTAKU ENCYCLOPEDIA, one of the organizers of Comiket is asked what makes a good doujinshi. He says, “Doujinshi are best when the original works are not too perfect and there are still things to say and explore” (p. 48). An interesting assessment. I wouldn’t necessarily call the source works “not too perfect,” although that description does apply to many of them (fan authors are often motivated by a drive to “fix” source material such as the last season of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST or the final episode of FOREVER KNIGHT). The second part of the sentence, however, sounds just right to me. I’d call it a question of “open” versus “closed.”
Some works of fiction are highly resistant to fanfic. THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRY, by Suzy McKee Charnas, for instance (even if she allowed fanfic, which she doesn’t). Just for fun, not for distribution, I once wrote a story in which one of my vampire characters met her vampire, Dr. Weyland. That tale was pure self-indulgence on my part, and its main purpose was to explore how my character would react. There’s nothing in the closed plot of THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRY that invites such exploration. On the other hand, one of the other great twentieth-century vampires, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s Count Saint-Germain, would provide limitless scope for fanfic because of his millennia-long life during which he interacts with countless people in a variety of historical periods and cultures. (Yarbro also forbids derivative fiction, though.) The most fruitful fields for expansion by fans are found in works and series that create entire universes—e.g., STAR TREK, STAR WARS, J. K. Rowling’s magical Britain, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover, Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar, S. M. Stirling’s alternate-present DIES THE FIRE and its sequels, or Jacqueline’s Sime-Gen series. Worlds such as these leave plenty of open space for fans to insert characters and incidents. There’s even a STAR TREK group, headquartered at Starship Farragut, that films its own videos in a ST spinoff containing no characters from the commercial works. In imaginary universes such as these, there always remain “things to say and explore.”
Margaret L. Carter
Carter's Crypt
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
"The Japanese manga and anime industry is much more tolerant of derivative, fan-produced work than most American writers and producers are. (I don’t know the reason for this cultural difference.)"
ReplyDeleteIn my observation, it's because the Japanese are not hesitant to market Science Fiction flavored anything to teenagers, including girls. And young people love that stuff. It's fun, just good ol' fun.
It was once explained to me that Japanese creators tolerate doujinshi because of a quirk in their copyright law. Unlike the US, in Japan you are not required to actively defend your copyright to retain it. For instance, if tomorrow someone in DC Comics saw a couple pages of a webcomic featuring Superman, and did not (within a reasonable timeframe) kill it, they could lose the whole Superman copyright. Permanently. Ditto with JK Rowling if she ever read any HP fanfic and didn't squash it.
ReplyDeleteIn Japan, without that requirement, doujinshi can exist though various publishers have stepped in when doujinshi have become too successful (as in selling tens of thousands of copies.) Which in turn makes them even more popular and drives convention attendance, since they have inherently limited print runs.
I heard this a few years ago, so things may have changed or may be in the process of changing. There are international efforts to harmonize IP laws worldwide, and considering US influence on the WTO and other trade organizations, the US 'standard' may become the international one.
"It was once explained to me that Japanese creators tolerate doujinshi because of a quirk in their copyright law. Unlike the US, in Japan you are not required to actively defend your copyright to retain it. For instance, if tomorrow someone in DC Comics saw a couple pages of a webcomic featuring Superman, and did not (within a reasonable timeframe) kill it, they could lose the whole Superman copyright. Permanently. Ditto with JK Rowling if she ever read any HP fanfic and didn't squash it."
ReplyDeleteThat makes a lot of sense. That is the reason most authors give for not allowing fanfic. It also relates to the usual refusal of most authors to read unpublished fiction by other people. Marion Zimmer Bradley had to cancel a Darkover novel she was working on because a fan claimed Bradley had lifted the plot from a fanfic story she'd sent to Bradley. After that, MZB stopped reading amateur Darkover fiction and editing the professionally-published Darkover anthologies.
Rowling does allow Harry Potter fanfic, but I bet you're correct that she doesn't read it, for both of those reasons.
Word to the doujinshi! I've enjoyed quite a few in my time. Great post, Margaret.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for fanfiction for two reasons
ReplyDelete1) It's free publicity for the real thing.
2) It's 'training wheels' for future authors.
I wrote tons of Bionic Woman stories when I was a kid. By the time I was eleven, it was no longer enough for me to play in someone else's universe with someone else's characters and I started writing my own original novel.