DouDouDoujin is back at Comic Frontier 19. Previously, the Japanese manga and doujinshi-focused reading platform also participated in the Comic Frontier creative market and exhibition.
Their booth is even bigger and this time they are presenting three manga artists whose works are very popular in Japan. But why is DouDouDoujin so interested in the Indonesian market?
The PlayEatSleep team had the opportunity to chat with Souichiro Mizutani (水谷 翔一郎), CEO of DouDouDoujin who was in person at Comic Frontier 19. Mizutani told us why he and his new company are so interested in the Indonesian manga market.
What is DouDouDoujin?
DouDouDoujin is a reading platform that currently offers manga and doujinshi (Japanese term for independent works) for free and legally. Interestingly, DouDouDoujin has an excellent feature which is voice over. Yes, you can not only read manga or doujinshi but also hear the characters' conversations.
This conversation feature is indeed very unique as no other manga reading platform has ever had such a feature. But the uniqueness of DouDouDoujin does not end there. Users of this reading platform can also participate as voice actors in manga that have been published on this platform.
Not only that, users who participate in enriching the manga on DouDouDoujin using their voices can also charge so that people can hear their voices. Thus, they are also involved in a creative collaboration through this platform.
"We want creators to connect with each other and make the work better through collaboration," Mizutani said. "There are already some vtubers contributing voice-overs to some of the manga in DouDouDoujin."
However, Mizutani said that DouDouDoujin is currently still in beta, which means that there are still many features that do not function properly. But in this beta version, readers can already enjoy manga and doujinshi complete with audio dialog.
You can try it here: https://doudoudoujin.com/
Why Choose Indonesia
When asked why Indonesia was chosen as the initial target market for DouDouDoujin, Mizutani said that it was a coincidence.
Mizutani, who previously worked at one of the leading publishers in Japan, said that many messages were sent by netizens from Indonesia to the social media accounts where he worked. The content of the message is more or less asking the publishing company to also publish creative works from Japan such as manga and novels to Indonesia.
Mizutani eventually visited Indonesia and the Comic Frontier event. There he saw that the Indonesian market also has great potential because Japanese pop culture fans are increasingly booming.
Not only that, according to Mizutani, manga artists are also currently worried about the declining Japanese manga market. This is because Japan is entering a demographic period where there are fewer young people than old people, which has a direct impact on creative markets such as manga. For this reason, many manga artists are also starting to explore markets other than Japan.
"Indonesia is a very promising market because its demographic is mostly dominated by young people. In addition, young Indonesians also have a high interest in Japanese pop culture. At least that's what I saw at Comic Frontier," Mizutani continued.
Bringing Indonesian Works to Japan
Through DouDouDoujin, Mizutani does not only bring manga artists and their works to Indonesia. He also did the opposite, namely introducing Indonesian-made manga to Japan.
Mizutani even published Doudou Magazine Edition 3 which contains manga created by manga artists from Indonesia. One of them is benish0ga's Apple to Orange which has also been published online on the DouDouDoujin platform.
Click here to read Apple to Orange manga for free.
Mizutani also said that manga artists from Indonesia have great potential to perform in the Japanese market. He even said that many audiences in Japan are surprised by Indonesian manga because the quality is surprisingly good.
"When we introduced manga created by Indonesian manga artists at the Comitia event, many Japanese people were surprised because the quality was so good," Mizutani said. "Many Japanese people think that manga is only produced in Japan, so they are quite surprised when there are manga from outside Japan with quality that is not inferior to Japanese manga."
Future DouDouDoujin
DouDouDoujin is not the only reading platform that offers manga and doujinshi from Japan. But DouDouDoujin has its own uniqueness that other reading platforms do not have, one of which is to present a collaboration that allows manga to be read and heard.
DouDouDoujin itself has published several manga magazines called Doudou Magazine. The magazine can also be purchased at the Comic Frontier 19 event yesterday. For those who have not had the opportunity to buy the magazine, Mizutani said he had found a partner from Indonesia who would help him to distribute Doudou Magazine in Indonesia.
"It will be sold through e-commerce platforms such as Shopee and Tokopedia," Mizutani explained.
Of course, we hope that DouDouDoujin can become the main bridge between Japanese and Indonesian creators, so that more collaborative products are created.
