藤倉和音 / Fujikura Kazune

One of the negative aspects of collecting dōjinshi (which adds to the costs and availability, if you happen to collect from abroad) is the essentially fickle nature of the dōjin world at all levels: it's way too common to discover an old dōjinshi by a circle you didn't know, just to find out that they disbanded / stopped producing / fell off the face of the planet after that single publication. There are surely many justifiable reasons for this kind of behavior - loss of interest, the still not insignificant costs of self publishing, the old and tried 'baleet all my indie work once I become famous' practice. Still, I can't help but feel slightly let down when this or that artist quits the dōjin world for good; especially when, instead of at least doing it for the greater good of going mainstream, they simply disappear without a trace, leaving behind a trail of borked websites.

One of these is Fujikura Kazune, who produced under the circle name SELFISH GENE a handful of dōjinshi in the late 90s / early 2000, followed by a couple of volumes of a basically forgotten and impossible to find manga, and then absolutely nothing. The site is a feast of 404s, he has no Twitter and no Pixiv that I could find. Those few dōjinshi however, at least the ones I could get my hands on, are visually interesting and charming works that deserve some attention.

The first one I purchased a while ago is 2001's self-referentially titled Liberation from Fujikura, a full color 28 pages book that is roughly divided between a first half of illustrations, and a second half of short manga stories. The theme seems to be photography and screens (there is more than one hint that Fujikura is also an amateur photographer), which is integrated into the illustrations not only thematically, but also visually: Fujikura's slightly childish, almost chibi characters are superimposed to computer generated backgrounds, manipulated photographies, and all kinds of digital filters. Neither of the two aspects really overtakes the other: Fujikura has an eye in particular for color and contrast, which ties the different visual styles together.

Then, captivated by the graphics and a lower than usual price, I also snagged the prehistoric (1997!) and equally self-referentially titled Introduction to Fujikura. 36 pages with some b&w towards the end. This one focuses solely on drawn illustration, and also features a few works of Fujikura that actually saw mainstream publication on anthologies and magazines.

Pardon the picture quality, but apparently this thing is so obscure there is no entry for it even in doujinshi.org. The illustrations are the main selling point here, as commentary is scarce as well as info - we're not even told in which magazine or anthology the illustrations appeared. Graphically, some will probably find Fujikura's style too simple and plain, as he mostly employs pastel and earthy colors, and the linework is very clean and unadorned. I personally liked it, although this dōjinshi is objectively the least interesting of the three I own from this circle.

The one some might actually find interesting and worth the purchase (should they actually find a copy) is 2000's Minitar, as it is actually more a fanzine than a Fujikura Kazune dōjinshi alone. 28 pages, a mix of b&w and color in a peculiar horizontal format.

 

 

 

 

Only about half of the book is dedicated to Fujikura's illustrations and short story manga (with no radical style shifts than what one could already see in previous publications): more than half of Minitar actually consists of interviews and shortcases of other artists and dōjinka. The main course, obviously, is a fairly long and meaty interview with Metalzigzag, a (NSFW) name that will probably be familiar to those that stalk Japanese image boards and the like. Also featured is a showcase by traditional artist 'Danse sans Musique' and an interview with illustrator / DYI artist / SELFISH GENE collaborator Keiko Sekikawa.

All in all, an interesting trio of dōjinshi which shows a lot of room for improvement that, alas, will simply not get a chance to happen.