Hi! If you're reading this, you've probably been in the anime world for a little while, and would like to know what a doujinshi is. Well, doujinshis are highly collectable, very well drawn Japanese comic books, usually depicting fan-written plots for popular animes. Doujinshis have become a very large market on e-bay recently, and not all people that buy them know exactly what they're getting into, so, I'm going to debunk a few of the scams involving doujinshi on e-bay, show you how to avoid buying unwanted porn, and hopefully make your e-bay experience better when buying these beautiful comics. I'd like to debunk the common misconception that "Doujinshi" is Japanese for "Porn comic". Doujinshis are NOT ALWAYS PORN. I would say over half of the ones on e-bay are, but that's just because the porn is what sells best in America; in Japan, a small margin of doujinshis are pornographic. However, if you're buying for someone under 18, or if you are under 18 yourself, you probably don't want anything even remotely pornographic. And, worst of all, the people that sell adult doujinshis don't put them in the adult section to get more views, and use little keywords to notify buyers but keep e-bay staff away. Here's a complete list of those keywords, and what they really mean. <BR>

Hentai: Pornography. Stay away unless you're in the market for it. <BR>

Yaoi: Guy on guy porn. Sometimes sellers don't exactly know what this means, so they will call shonen-ai (listed below) yaoi in all of their auctions. It's still a bad idea to get this unless you want it, y'know? <BR>

Shonen-ai: Guy on guy romance with absolutely nothing sexual involved. Usually nothing past a kiss. <BR>

Yuri: Female on female sex. Unlike yaoi listings, these will always be porn <BR>

"Pairings": This can mean anything, but usually it just means light romance between a man and a woman. Safe. <BR>

"Normal": This means the doujinshi has absolutely no sexual air to it whatsoever. Perfectly safe. <BR>

18P, 32P, etc: Page count. Most doujinshis have fewer than 40 pages. <BR>

Now that you're protected against the perils of porn, allow me to show you your biggest problem: CD sets. Sometimes you will come across a set of hundreds of doujinshis at an amazingly affordable price, usually under a dollar each! Shipping WILL be expensive on this auction, to make people think they're really going to get hundreds of doujinshis. Well, you're not; read the fine print on the auction. If you buy the auction, you'll end up with a highly illegal set of doujinshis the creator of the auction took unauthorized scans of, put on a bootleg CD or DVD, and sold to you for massive profit. E-bay pays little to no attention to these CDs, as doujinshis break a few copyrights themselves. <BR>

Now that we know how to avoid being shipped what we don't want, let's learn how to be shipped what we DO want. Doujinshis are often sold by people who don't speak much English; sometimes even the author of the doujinshi himself. This means the auction will be riddled with mis-spellings, making it hard to find what you want. But there's a way past that, no matter what you're looking for. For example, if you're looking for a Final Fantasy 9 Doujinshi, your search should be something like this. <BR> <BR>

(Final Fantasy 9, Final Fantarsy 9, Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantarsy IX) Doujinshi <BR> <BR>

Understand? Good. But sadly, the remainder of doujinshis are sold by Americans who don't quite understand Japanese terminology. Sometimes they will simply call a doujinshi a "Japanese comic book"! But fear not; if it's on e-bay, you'll be able to find it. Now, let's say you're looking for a yaoi doujinshi and want to find ones with fragmented Japanese in them. <BR> <BR>

(Yaoi, Yoai) (Doujinshi, Dojinshi, Doujin, Dojin) <BR> <BR>

Now you're fluent in Americanized Japanese! Hurray! But we're not done yet. We have to learn about circles. 90% of the doujinshi auctions you come across will list a circle that it's part of. A circle is what draws and develops your doujinshis, and some do a pretty lousy job. My recommendation is to keep a book of all your doujinshis with all of the circles rated 1 to 10. If a circle stinks, simply don't buy anything else by them. If they rule, snatch up everything you can find by them. Remember that circles will improve overtime; if a circle you hated in 2000 makes a doujinshi in 2002, give it a chance. They might become your new favorite circle! <BR>
Well, I hope you enjoyed my little guide; I'm planning to write more in the not-too-distant future, so keep watching, and thanks for reading.