Josh’s Anime Blog

Here is episode 1 of Doujin Work, a half-episode animation. The show actually lasts for a full half hour, with the last half hour apparently taken up by the two lead voice actresses trying to make a doujinshi themselves, but I’m not going to put any of that on my blog, just the animation part.

If you can’t guess by the title, this is a show about making doujinshi, and thus is kind of inherently ecchi in areas, but I still think it’s funny. Also, see shots of the opening and ending credits at the end.

Episode 1 starts out with Najimi Osana (whose name also means “childhood friend” in Japanese) telling her friend Tsuyuri how she just lost her job (her boss was mad at her, and while chiding her, she was making a funny face because a hair was tickling her nose. When her boss asked her what was up, she just said “hair,” forgetting that her boss wears wigs, and is sensitive about it) on the way to their college classes.

However, Tsuyuri was asleep because she stayed up all night. Najimi asks if it was something “perverted” and Tsuyuri says that it was. Flustered, Najimi asks when Tsuyuri “found someone,” and Tsuyuri just says she does “it” by herself and asks Najimi if she’d like to help. Najimi gets even more flustered, then calms down and says that while she likes her, it’s just as friends.

The next day, Tsuyuri tells Najimi that she writes doujinshi, and would like her to help sell them at her table that day at Comiket (and Najimi finally realizes the “perverted” thing Tsuyuri was up all night doing). Najimi asks Tsuyuri about doujinshi, since she isn’t all that familiar with it. Tsuyuri tells her that lots of people draw it, and that her specialty is drawing rape doujinshi (which temporarily startles Najimi).

Finally, the pair get to Tsuyuri’s circle’s space - a place for a group of people who make doujinshi together to sell their work, though in this case Tsuyuri is the only person in her circle (which is called Panty Revolution). Later in the day, Najimi finds out why Tsuyuri wants her to help out: to watch the store when Tsuyuri needs to do things, such as go to the bathroom.

Later on, Najimi asks Tsuyuri whether making Doujinshi is profitable. Tsuyuri tells her that if one becomes really popular, one might be able to make 10 million yen (roughly $100,000) at a large festival like Comiket. Suddenly a tall, well dressed man shows up and starts quasi-flirting with Tsuyuri. Najimi suddenly realizes that the man is Justice, a childhood friend of hers. Tsuyuri recognizes Justice as being one of the really popular doujinshi sellers. Hearing this, Najimi asks how much he usually sells, and he says about 30,000 books, which at 100 yen each (he sells them cheap), is about 3 million yen ($30,000). However, he tells her that his margins are virtually non-existent since he sells his books for such a low price, but that it’s worth it since people buy and enjoy them.

This seals the deal for Najimi - she decides that she’ll create doujinshi herself and become filthy rich doing so!

This episode sets up the series of Najimi deciding to write doujinshi herself. However, we already see some pitfalls - some worries by her that she can’t draw and the fact that she isn’t exactly fully comfortable with perverted things. We’ll just have to see how this works out.