This guide is my effort to help you with some advices and resources if you want to buy dojinshi, especially in Ebay, if you are not very knowledgeable and awkward in this area. I will have to let you know that I only collect Harry Potter dojinshi (at the moment) so don't expect information about other animes since I am not that knowledgeable about them, I will try my best not to talk too much about Harry Potter and talk about dojinshi in general but expect the resources to have Harry Potter content.

Overview:

Dojinshi (fanzine in English) are like fan fictions, but instead of written in words, it would be in manga (comic) style. Artists would use any original work's characters, settings or plot to develop stories that are related to that original story but unofficial. The original works (usually copyrighted) can be from games, books, mangas, movies, TV shows, etc. The artists of the dojinshi are usually called circle (doujin), usually consisting of a team but there are individual artists too. So instead of saying "this dojinshi's is made by the author..." it would be more appropriate if you said "this dojinshi is made by the circle..."

Often, buying dojinshi is like a box of chocolates, especially at dojinshi conventions... You never know what's inside; there have been instances when one would see a cutie cutey chibi Hermione cover and then, after buying, find out it is hentai. However, that doesn't happen too often in Ebay, because you will get overviews from reliable sellers most of the time.


Various things to consider (or ask seller if info is not provided):

1. Size classifications

• A5 approx. 5.8 in. x 8.2 in. (14.5 cm x 20.5 cm) BEWARE, frequently used for fan fiction (written novels) and no comic unless otherwise stated
• B5 approx. 7.2 in. x 10.3 in. (18 cm x 25.7 cm) MOST common
• A4 approx. 8.4 in. x 11.9 in. (21 cm x 29.8 cm) Mostly just for art, not many pages
• Nonstandard Usually handmade

Usually I don't bother with this when I know for sure it contains artwork and the price of item+shipping is decent for the amount of pages+weight.

2. Art

DON'T depend only on cover art!!! Reliable dojinshi sellers would put a sample or two in their listing to give the buyers more security. Why? Because there would be times that the cover art isn't as good as inside art at all, or even different.

If seller doesn't provide the art and refuses to give you samples, and even if seller does provide you should look up other dojinshi made by the same circle and check out their art style.

Also be aware that there are dojinshi that have several different kinds of art style with different stories, mostly in anthologies. That happens when Circles or individual artists team together to make a dojinshi.

3. Circle

If you plan to collect dojinshi, I suggest you to look at the circle of a certain dojinshi you like and look at their other work. Their other dojinshi's artwork, and sometimes storytelling, would be systematic in quality and content.

4. Genre

Normal Female-Male relationship if any at all. NOT explicit.
Gag Comedy or Parody oriented.
Shoujo Ai/Soft Yuri Female-female relationship or friendship oriented. NOT explicit.
Shonen Ai/Soft Yaoi Male-male relationship or friendship oriented. NOT explicit.
Yaoi Female Male-male relationship oriented. EXPLICIT.
Yuri Female/Female relationship oriented. EXPLICIT.
Hentai NC-17 contents oriented. EXPLICIT.
Combination Two or more genres.

5. Content

If the seller doesn't provide a short summary and you want to know what content it will have beforehand... I hope it's obvious by now... Look at other sources ^_^. Yep, I have to hammer that fact into your head and will continue to do so.
 

6. Avaiability

Because of copyright issues, circles don't print a large amount of dojinshi, some of them may be hard to reach or very rare. There have been dojinshi that spiked up to 50 dollars or maybe more.


Don't immediately think that older dojinshi are more expensive, though... Because some circles publish sairokubon them again at later date, which means the supply goes up and demand lowers (unless it's so popular that the sairokubon reprints go out of stock right away and not resold very often) or the dojinshi never rose in popularity.

7. State of the dojinshi

Like with all items, dojinshi drops in price if it’s damaged, but it's not that simple. Because of the limit of the dojinshi availability, used dojinshi in pretty good condition has the same price as first bought book. Serious collectors usually preserve them very well and often don't even have the bent ears, so don't just think it's worth less because it's used, you have to know what kind of condition it is in.

8. Price

Well! This is a hard one; I get dumbfounded with that pretty often when I see a dojinshi I am interested to buy. Average price is 5-15 USD, sometimes going as low as 2 or 3 USD.

Often I fix the problem by going to other sources to look at their prices and compare. However, more often than not, dojinshi come up for sale that isn't referenced at all as if it came out of the blue... How should you price it? It will have to depend on your budget AND your interest on the content to decide whether you want to pay quite a bit or not... especially because you probably might not find it again.

Don't forget to look at the amount of pages it has and the shipping. Personally, I usually don't pay more than $5 USD for fewer pages (less than 30) unless the art is so extraordinary or a popular rarity.

You have to keep in mind that popularity plays a role in the pricing, if it's extremely popular then you'll have hard time getting it without spending quite a bit, if you ever find it for sale.

9. Resources-References

Because Ebay doesn't allow links outside of Ebay, therefore I am simply going to give you titles or keywords to find in any engine search, preferably Google since I used this one to make sure they're on the first page.

• Addiction: A Harry Potter Doujinshi Website
• JAPAN MANGA BOOKMART
• The Jargon of Doujinshi By Dan Kanemitsu
• JPqueen
• Twinbells Doujinshi
• LAUGHING STOCK (gag doujinshi fanlisting)
• The Vivisection Doujinshi
• Doujinshi-online
• Houseofblack Doujinshi
• Dojinshi Wikipedia

I hope I didn't miss or mistake any important stuff or made too many writing mistakes... If so, tell me please and I will edit whenever I can ^_^

I will be updating the resources-references as I come across them or they cease to exist.

I hope this guide helped you! =]

10. Credits

I will list people who helped to fix or add info to my update to make it better. Those with links are Ebayers, those without links do not have an account:

• mel_chan8