Fanfiction. Fanart. Fan-works. Fandoms.
A great deal of discussion has been carried out over the cringe-ness and the legitimacy of fan creations, with many voicing discontent. Admittedly, that’s partly why writing this was kinda difficult, since I wasn’t sure what sort of feelings to pour into this; but eventually, I decided I wanted this to be a love-letter to the fans that comprise fandoms and keep the excitement for stories alive through their non-profitable, for-the-love-of-the-game work.
This is especially true when it comes to manga and BL, of course.
While the spread of fandom culture in the West is still somewhat in its infancy (at least, the “mainstreamification” of it) over here in Japan, the significance of fan-work is established fact. As eloquently put by Lucas in our recent interview, our beloved BL was founded on the painstaking, unpaid work of doujinshi makers in the 80s, who banded together to establish Comiket culture and modern yaoi culture out of love for shonen manga, their characters, and the latent possibilities of their pairings. Without aniparo writers and artists, BL as we know it today, unrestricted, and equal parts dramatic and fun, wouldn’t exist. And, based on the understanding that fan-book doujinshi are a labor of love rather than for profit, no one really makes money through selling their work. The cost of event participation is so big, it offsets any profit; the artists themselves charge so little for their fan-books exactly out of respect for the original creators and publishers. It might be enough to partially cover the cost of participation, but that’s about it. Everything else is pure love.
At the same time, this important link between doujinshi and BL might be the reason why, for newbies in the manga scene, doujinshi and yaoi are almost synonymous (wee Alice believed the same thing, once). In general, fanfiction as a whole seems to suffer from the same distorted reputation, of being considered equal to smut and nothing else whatsoever. To begin with, that notion harbors the underlying belief that “smut” is something reprehensible, disgusting, shameful, hence rendering smutty stories “horrible” by default. But, that aside, fanfiction is not just smut. When it comes to the mainstream perception of fanfic, perhaps a certain one that made it big and includes a mention of a two-digit number and a blended color might be to blame for this mistaken representation. But, fan-works are often not about romance, but allow fans to explore their favorite characters in ways that weren’t depicted in the original, either because the content was omitted or the character was too insignificant for that screentime. I can vouch for that, as a fan of (any iteration of) Bakura from Yu-Gi-Oh! It wasn’t canon material that fed my little dark heart back during my YGO hype era, but online creators hell-bent on exploring the angst of a character that was often pushed out of the limelight of the narrative.
There are many professional artists as well, some of whom you might find on Renta!, that enjoy creating fanart and doujinshi, to the point of maintaining different social media accounts for original work and fan-work—a clear sign that we are all fans of somebody else’s work, just as we’re creators of our own. As a response to the post of an anonymous mangaka expressing their hatred for fan-works, politician and prolific mangaka Ken Akamatsu professed his love for fandom works, talking about his own roots in Comiket and about how he’d visit the Comiket stalls of creators that did doujins off his work to greet and thank them, while they’d humbly apologize in return. Of course, despite his own grateful, happy feelings on the matter, he does acknowledge that, while most authors welcome fan creations, there have been others who aren’t as fond of it.
There’s something to be said about recent instances of creators expressing negative feelings about adaptations of their manga or for companies with licenses to their creative work doing things without their permission. What at least one mangaka in such a situation had specified is that the issue doesn’t lie with fan works, but with official agents misrepresenting their stories and their characters, all while operating under the banner of “official content.”
When that anonymous post against fan-works was made, some voices wondered why Comiket and other doujinshi festivals can’t follow the example of WonderFestival, or WonFes for short, a major gathering for displaying official and unofficial figures: anytime someone wants to present an independently-made figure, they must ask for the official approval of the original creator or the editorial department responsible for the distribution of creative license. So why not do the same with Comiket, or any doujinshi circles that do make profit? The issue there is freedom of expression and deciding what’s wrong or right for a fan to imagine, something that could jeopardize the “ecosystem” of an entire fandom. It would be policing what people are allowed to think about a fictional work that’s supposed to be touching their hearts, and that could lead to festering bitterness against the original work. While the author’s voice is the only one that matters when it comes to story canon, the community that evolves around that same story canon is made out of the fans’ love.
It’s not like the world of doujinshi is entirely lawless, either. Setting aside the basic understanding that no profit is to be made from fan creations, there have also been major franchises, such as Fate/Grand Order, that have issued “fanfiction guidelines”—and before you start fearing that your Ryoma x Izou fanfic is against the rules, fret not. The guidelines are pretty much that 1. you shouldn’t attempt to sell your work as official by using the logo, etc. and 2. don’t adapt canon events into other media or publish any translations of canon events in other languages, since that would be, understandably, 100% an act of stealing intellectual property. These official guidelines, if anything, turn their backs on anyone who argues that fan works are bad “because they’re not canon” and grant all wayward creators permission to fly and be free in their imagination.
There are multiple reasons why people, from original creators to fans, reject fan works. The lack of a quality-checking authority, which births illegible fanfics without any cohesion, grammar or proper spelling. What a lot of people see as fanfic being “self-serving.” Even the frequent occurrence of smut. But, ultimately, fan works are often the glue that keeps fandom together, encouraging connections and creative expression. Any of the fan-artists, doujinshi creators and fanfic writers you see could be next in line to getting their own original work published soon, after all, and fandom is simply something they engage with simply for the joy of it. And, perhaps getting some publishing deal for their original work might not even be what they want out of life. What every fanfic writer, fan-artist, doujinshi creator knows is that this is all merely a manifestation of everyone’s innocent, innate need to express themselves, with the original work providing the “language” through which they can do just that.
rentaBLog 