is a Japanese four-panel

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

series written and illustrated by

Hiroyuki is a common masculine Japanese given name. Written forms Hiroyuki can be written using different kanji characters and can mean: extensive, good fortune, spacious. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . It is written in hir ...

. The story revolves around a young girl named Najimi Osana who is about to make her debut into the

dōjin In Japan, a is a group of people who share an interest, activity, or hobby. The word is sometimes translated into English as " clique", "fandom", "coterie", "society", or "circle" (as in " sewing circle"). Self-published creative works pro ...

creation world with the help of her experienced friends. Aspects of what it is like to be a dōjin artist are common themes throughout the story. The series was first serialized in the ''

Manga Time Kirara Carat is a Japanese seinen manga magazine published by Houbunsha and mainly consisting of four-panel comic strips. It is released on the 28th of each month. The first issue was released on January 18th 2003 as a special edition of Manga Time Kirara. T ...

'' magazine on November 28, 2004, published by

Houbunsha is a Japanese publishing company founded on July 10, 1950. It is based in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo. History of Houbunsha In 1946, the founder, Yoshichika Koso, proclaimed the vision of establishing Shobunkan to provide entertainment through publishi ...

. Since then, the manga has also been serialized in two other magazines published by the same company named ''

Manga Time Kirara is a Japanese magazine published by Houbunsha serializing mainly four-panel ''seinen'' manga. Issued on the 9th of each month, it was first published as a special edition of Houbunsha magazine '' Manga Time'' on May 17th 2002. The first indepen ...

'' and ''

Manga Time Kirara Forward is a Japanese seinen manga is an editorial category of Japanese comics marketed toward young adult men. In Japanese, the word means "youth", but the term " manga" is also used to describe the target audience of magazines like '' Weekly M ...

''. The manga ended serialization in ''Manga Time Kirara'' on February 9, 2008 and the chapters collected into 6 ''

tankōbon A is a standard publishing format for books in Japan, alongside other formats such as ''shinsho'' (17x11 cm paperback books) and ''bunkobon''. Used as a loanword in English, the term specifically refers to a printed collection of a manga that w ...

'' volumes. An

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

television series adaptation aired in Japan between July 4, 2007 and September 19, 2007.

Plot

''Dōjin Work'' follows the life of a young girl named Najimi Osana and her exposure into the

world. She was first tempted into becoming a dōjin artist after seeing how much one of her friends can make at a convention. Najimi loves to draw, though soon learns contrary to what she expected that this new world is anything but easy. As she attends more conventions and meets more people, Najimi eventually manages to find a group of very interesting friends. These friends already have some experience in the field and help her out along the way so that she can someday make a name for herself creating

dōjinshi , also Romanization of Japanese, romanized as ', is the Japanese term for self-published print works, such as magazines, manga, and novels. Part of a wider category of ''doujin'' (self-published) works, ''doujinshi'' are often derivative of exi ...

Characters

; : :Najimi is an innocent young girl in college at Nerijima University who, after losing her job as a

convenience store A convenience store, convenience shop, bakkal, bodega, corner store, corner shop, superette or mini-mart is a small retail store that stocks a range of everyday items such as convenience food, groceries, beverages, tobacco products, lotter ...

clerk, decides to switch professions and starts attempting to create

, or

fan-made Fan labor, also called fan works, are the creative activities engaged in by fans, primarily those of various media properties or musical groups. These activities can include creation of written works (fiction, fan fiction and review literature) ...

. She is inspired after seeing her friend Tsuyuri sell her dōjinshi at a comic festival, and after meeting her childhood friend Justice again, who is also a

artist. Her dōjin circle is called Beauty Love House, and Najimi uses the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...

Beauty Love when writing her dōjinshi. She gets easily embarrassed when she encounters people seeing her with inappropriate content. Najimi's name is a pun on the Japanese term , meaning "childhood friend". ; : :Tsuyuri is a dōjin artist and creates her dōjinshi under the name . She is the only member of her dōjin circle which she named Panty Revolution. Her dōjinshi mainly consists of rape manga. ; : :Justice is a popular dōjin artist who often sells tens of thousands dōjin at a single event, though does not earn much money due to production costs and the low price he sells his dōjin for. He is a childhood friend of Najimi. He appears to be highly protective to Najimi, to the point of getting ''very'' annoyed when noticing any man getting close to her. Also, Tsuyuri called Justice a "father figure" when he was overprotective of Najimi when Junichirō wanted to ask her out. In the anime, he is seen as having a "kiddy relationship" with Sōra, however, in the manga, he is shown having an almost pedophiliac relationship with her, including becoming very "tense" and wanting to rub her when she fell and her panties were exposed. He also went crazy after seeing her panties (after Sōra's declaration of love, and her kiss; before that, seeing them had no effect on him) that "even the pain...is transforming into a feeling of joy", until only holding the hand that touched Sōra's bloomers could calm him. It is never quite stated what their relationship is, since Justice seems to have feelings for Najimi, but he tells Sōra he loves her very often. ; : :Sōra is a little girl that is rarely seen without Justice. She is the youngest main character by far, as Justice, Tsuyuri, and Najimi are all in college and Sōra is the only one apparently too young to participate in Justice's

browsing. Her relationship with Justice is often portrayed as somewhat inappropriate, and it has been stated that Justice makes all the cute outfits Sōra wears. Sōra also gave Justice her first kiss, which he suddenly realizes is his first kiss as well. Sōra has stated many times that she loves Justice, and is going to marry him. She wants to set up Najimi with Junichirō so Najimi will not be in the way of Justice and Sōra's relationship. ; : :Junichirō is a young man around Najimi's age who she first met in an

adult game An ''eroge'' (, ''eroge'', or , ''erogē'', ), also called an H-game, is a Japanese genre of erotic video game. The term encompasses a wide variety of Japanese games containing erotic content across multiple genres. The first ''eroge'' were crea ...

store while she was buying one such game to help her with drawing her

. He later became her first customer the first time she was selling her dōjinshi, though he was the only customer at the time. Later when Najimi gets a job at a

cosplay restaurant are theme restaurants and pubs that originated in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan, around the late 1990s and early 2000s. They include and , where the service staff dress as elegant maids, or as butlers. The staff treat the customers as '' masters'' a ...

, he comes every day, which makes Justice believe he is a stalker due to him showing up around Najimi so often. He does in fact have a crush on her, and has to persevere against Justice's antics to get close to her. ; : :Kaneru is an office lady in her twenties who enjoys drawing

as her hobby, but has poor skills in drawing and creating them. Najimi declares her to be a rival after they both fare poorly in sales at the Comic Market. Tsuyuri artificially encourages this rivalry in the belief that it will make Najimi a better artist and author. Kaneru also misinterprets Justice's and Junichirō's relationship not as antagonistic over Najimi, but a

yaoi , also known by its abbreviation , is a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that depicts homoerotic relationships between male characters. It is typically created by women for a female audience, distinguishing it from the equivale ...

love affair. ; : :Ryūichirō is Junichirō's older brother who works in a publishing company as an editor for a

manga magazine are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics an ...

. He often gets stressed over his job if he cannot make a deadline.

Media

Manga

''Dōjin Work'' was written and illustrated by

and began serialization in the ''

'' magazine on November 28, 2004, published by

. The manga has made guest appearances in another manga magazine by the same publishing company called ''

''. Starting with the April 2006 issue of ''

'', the manga has been serialized side-by-side in ''Forward'' and in the original serialization magazine, ''Carat''. The manga ended serialization in ''Manga Time Kirara'' on February 9, 2008 and the chapters collected into six ''

'' volumes.

Anime

television series adaptation animated by Remic aired in Japan from July 4, 2007, to September 19, 2007, and is directed by

Kenichi Yatagai is a Japanese animation director. Anime involved in *''Bubblegum Crisis'': Director (episodes 1–2), Technical Director (episodes 1–2) *''Cardcaptor Sakura'': Episode Director (ep 66) *'' Dōjin Work'': Director, Storyboard (episodes 1, 3, 12) ...

. The anime features a live-action segment towards the end of each episode in which

voice actors Voice acting is the art of Acting, performing a character or providing information to an audience with one's voice. Performers are often called voice actors/actresses in addition to other names. Examples of voice work include animation, animated, ...

Kimiko Koyama and Momoko Saito try to create their own

. Should they fail to do so, the two are to pose in embarrassing costumes as a way of apologizing to the fans. Due to the live-action segment, the anime runs fourteen minutes including the opening and ending animations, which means the live-action segment runs ten minutes. The anime has been licensed by

Media Blasters Media Blasters, sometimes abbreviated as MB, is an American entertainment company that was founded by John Sirabella in 1997 and is based in New York City. It is in the business of licensing, translating, and releasing to the North American mar ...

, and they released the first English DVD on January 27, 2009. The opening and ending theme

maxi single A maxi single, maxi-single, or maxi CD (sometimes abbreviated to MCD or CDM) is a music single release with more than the usual two tracks of an A-side song and a B-side song. Maxi singles are often mistaken for extended plays (EPs), especial ...

s, by Maki and by

Mai Mizuhashi , better known by her stage name , is a Japanese pop singer, songwriter, dancer, model and costume designer from Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. Originally a member of a music group, Mizuhashi found fame posting videos on the Japanese website Niconic ...

respectively, were released on July 25, 2007, by

Media Factory , formerly known as , was a Japanese publisher and brand company of Kadokawa Future Publishing. History The company was founded on December 1, 1986, and was a subsidiary of Recruit (Japanese company), Recruit Co., Ltd., based in Shibuya, Tokyo. ...

. The original soundtrack for the anime was released on September 21, 2007, also by Media Factory.

References

External links

Hiroyuki's website on the manga

Anime official website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dojin Work 2004 manga Comedy anime and manga Houbunsha manga Manga creation in anime and manga Media Blasters Seinen manga Yonkoma