![]() By comparing these fanworks with other kinds of works that are exchanged in such “hybrid” economies, like open source software, I’m developing a vocabulary for explaining fanworks as a sort of “open source cultural goods” that fit in very well with many other “open” movements today. ![]() To do that, I frame dōjinshi exchange as a hybrid economy that straddles fannish gift economies and market economies for cultural goods. The goal of thesis is to describe in detail the salient characteristics of dōjinshi exchange, and to explain the functioning of dōjinshi market in terms that should be useful for fans, academics, open culture activists, and media industry people who are grappling with how to handle monetization of fanworks. However, in spite of its long history and enormous size, the system dōjinshi exchange in Japan is largely unknown outside of the country. As a real-world example of a system for monetizing fanworks that has thrived for decades, dōjinshi exchange could offer crucial inspiration and data on what works and what doesn't. Monetization of fanworks has long been seen as very problematic by both fans and copyright holders in the West, but is now becoming a hot-button issue with the appearance of Fifty Shades of Grey and other high-profile attempts at commercializing unauthorized fanworks. The female gaze implicit in both manga allows female readers to see celebrations of empowered female homosociality in works that would otherwise be dismissed as misogynistic while also serving as a critical tool for female creators, who overturn clichéd tropes and narrative patterns as a means of telling stories that will appeal to an audience of women and as a means of feminist critique.Īvailable open access at Dōjinshi are Japanese print fanworks that are often sold for money with the tacit approval of copyright holders. This essay focuses on Takeuchi Naoko's Sailor Moon and CLAMP's Magic Knight Rayearth, arguing that both manga recontextualize and reinterpret bishōjo character tropes common to illustrated and animated narratives of the 1990s and thus disrupt the cycle of narrative consumption and reproduction that drives mainstream media in contemporary Japan. Fictional bishōjo can also serve as an empowering role model to young women, especially when the character type is used by female artists as a site of contention concerning discourse on female agency and sexuality. For female readers, the appeal of bishōjo, or "beautiful fighting girl," is not merely the supposedly liminal fantasy world they represent to male theorists but also the self-reflexive appeal of being young, beautiful, magical, and sexually aware.
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