Toyble's AF

[Mad Swami]

You guys know how Toyotaro made a Dragonball AF manga. Well did he make money off of it? Was it just published online? Basically how did he produce it.

[Thanos]

By my recollection, he used to self-publish AF online through his website years ago (probably a decade or so back?). I remember checking every so often to see if he had published any new pages. This was obviously done unofficially, so it's safe to assume he was not paid in any way for it. Presuming he is indeed Toyotaro (never 100% confirmed to my knowledge), he was later hired in 2012 to do the Dragon Ball Heroes: Victory Mission manga where I'm sure he was financially compensated. He would then go on to do the Super manga and do character designs for the series proper, so I guess you could say Victory Mission was his trial run to move on to bigger and better things.

[Mad Swami]

By my recollection, he used to self-publish AF online through his website years ago (probably a decade or so back?). I remember checking every so often to see if he had published any new pages. This was obviously done unofficially, so it's safe to assume he was not paid in any way for it. Presuming he is indeed Toyotaro (never 100% confirmed to my knowledge), he was later hired in 2012 to do the Dragon Ball Heroes: Victory Mission manga where I'm sure he was financially compensated. He would then go on to do the Super manga and do character designs for the series proper, so I guess you could say Victory Mission was his trial run to move on to bigger and better things.

thanks for the answer

[Locust]

By my recollection, he used to self-publish AF online through his website years ago (probably a decade or so back?). I remember checking every so often to see if he had published any new pages. This was obviously done unofficially, so it's safe to assume he was not paid in any way for it. Presuming he is indeed Toyotaro (never 100% confirmed to my knowledge), he was later hired in 2012 to do the Dragon Ball Heroes: Victory Mission manga where I'm sure he was financially compensated. He would then go on to do the Super manga and do character designs for the series proper, so I guess you could say Victory Mission was his trial run to move on to bigger and better things.

He printed off copies of his doujinshi and sold them at various doujinshi cons. He did make money from them, but likely not a huge amount
Most doujinshi artists just make enough to break even (ie, cover the costs of printing)

It doesn't matter that AF was unofficial, doujinshi are fan manga and are frequently sold. It's just part of Japanese culture, companies don't tend to mind as, while they're a legal grey area, they don't (usually) make massive amounts of money and can serve to promote series

[kei17]

It doesn't matter that AF was unofficial, doujinshi are fan manga and are frequently sold. It's just part of Japanese culture, companies don't tend to mind as, while they're a legal grey area, they don't (usually) make massive amounts of money and can serve to promote series

They did mind in the case of Youg Jiji's AF doujinshi, though. He seems to have been warned by Shueisha about directly naming his doujinshi "Dragon Ball" and once withdrew all of his books from online stores and republished them as "After the Future." After the court case of Shogakukan suing the author of a Doraemon doujinshi named "Doraemon: The Final Chapter," it is now considered taboo to publish something under the exact name of a franchise that can be mistaken as an official sequel, which can be harmful to the original publishers. Toyble/Toyotaro was politic enough to name his doujinshi "DBAF."

[Locust]

It doesn't matter that AF was unofficial, doujinshi are fan manga and are frequently sold. It's just part of Japanese culture, companies don't tend to mind as, while they're a legal grey area, they don't (usually) make massive amounts of money and can serve to promote series

They did mind in the case of Youg Jiji's AF doujinshi, though. He seems to have been warned by Shueisha about directly naming his doujinshi "Dragon Ball" and once withdrew all of his books from online stores and republished them as "After the Future." After the court case of Shogakukan suing the author of a Doraemon doujinshi named "Doraemon: The Final Chapter," it is now considered taboo to publish something under the exact name of a franchise that can be mistaken as an official sequel, which can be harmful to the original publishers. Toyble/Toyotaro was politic enough to name his doujinshi "DBAF.

Yes, there's been a handful of cases of doujinshi creators being warned/taken to court, I'm aware. They'll always be outliers.
Before I moved on to more professional manga endeavors, I did make and sell doujinshi prolifically

It's pretty silly in my opinion to go after small time creators like this, there's the argument that it could "cause confusion between official and fanmade products" but I'm not sure I completely buy that
Regardless, it's a legal grey area, so it's just important for prospective doujinshi creators to study up and protect themselves from such things

[kei17]

It's pretty silly in my opinion to go after small time creators like this, there's the argument that it could "cause confusion between official and fanmade products" but I'm not sure I completely buy that.

In the above-mentioned case of Doraemon, the author printed over ten thousand of copies and they were widely available at book stores that also sell doujinshi, so Shougakukan couldn't ignore it. It also didn't help that the cover was too similar to those of the official tankoubon release. Manga publishers' attitude became stricter after that, but I can't blame them.

[Locust]

It's pretty silly in my opinion to go after small time creators like this, there's the argument that it could "cause confusion between official and fanmade products" but I'm not sure I completely buy that.

In the above-mentioned case of Doraemon, the author printed over ten thousand of copies and they were widely available at book stores that also sell doujinshi, so Shougakukan couldn't ignore it. It also didn't help that the cover was too similar to those of the official tankoubon release. Manga publishers' attitude became stricter after that, but I can't blame them.

Yes, sorry - I actually thought I had addressed the Doraemon doujinshi, but I see I must have got distracted and left my thoughts out! That's my bad
Yeah would say when you're printing off thousands of copies, it's difficult to call someone like that a "small time" creator
When I say small time, I more think of the doujin creators that print off <300 copies of their creations
I think it was very valid for them to go after the Doraemon doujinshi author, but I get wary of the idea of big companies going after actual small time creators. It's unlikely most companies would bother with truly small creators but I am reminded of authors such as Anne Rice and Anne Mccaffrey, who would aggressively go after fanfic/fanart creators - so unlikely but not impossible

For myself, when I make doujinshi based on existing IPs, I only print off a very limited number, and I don't price to make a profit - I just price to cover printing costs
For my own personal ethics, I don't really want to be making money off of someones IP - I simply make doujinshi for IPs that I'm passionate about because I like exploring their universes and I want to promote them to people - get them interested in engaging with the source material

(Hopefully this made sense, my English isn't the best, felt like this was sloppily explained on my part)

[infectedmann]

Dude, there is already a topic for Toyble's (Toyotaro) AF with thousands of comments: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4470