Ask John: Are Official Japanese Spin-Offs in Other Media Common?

Question:
I noticed recently that there have been several manga publishers that have gotten into prequels (GTO: Shonan Junai-gumi), new story arcs (Evangelion: Angelic Days) and non-manga novels (Please Teacher, Love Hina). Are these “officially sanctioned” derivative works common in Japan and are just recently translated here in the U.S.? Do doujinshi ever get published as “official” variants of a series?

Answer:
Before I offer a direct answer to your question, allow me to first address a point you’ve made. Tohru Fujisawa’s Shonan Junai-gumi manga series pre-dates the GTO manga by seven years. The Shonan Junai-gumi manga series debuted in Japan in 1990 and ended in 1996. The GTO manga then premiered in 1997. America has simply gotten the better known second series first.

Fan created adaptations of established franchises, and adaptations in other media are quite common in Japan’s publishing industry. Defining which are “officially sanctioned” spin-offs and variations is very difficult to do, though, because of the liberal nature of Japanese copyright enforcement. Naturally new stories published by the original author should be thought of as “official.” In that sense, Tohru Fujisawa’s Shonan Junai-gumi, Bad Company, and GTO are all “official” installments in the story of Eikichi Onizuka. Similarly, manga spin-offs originating from the original studio, like the Evangelion: Angelic Days manga story, should be considered “official” because they’re produced with the direct input of the franchise creators. “Lite novels,” as they’re called, are roughly as popular and common in Japan as manga are. Some of these novel series, such as Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu, Trinity Blood, Kino no Tabi, and Shinigami no Ballad are even popular enough to spawn anime adaptations. It’s also quite common for successful anime to spawn “official” novelizations, as is the case with series like Onegai Teacher and Love Hina.

More difficult to clearly identify as “official” are professionally published anthologies of parody comics and fan created doujinshi. For many years now, major Japanese publisher Oak Comics has specialized in publishing manga anthologies of fan created erotic parodies of famous anime. Enterbrain, the company that publishes the world famous video game news magazine Weekly Famitsu, has published dozens of manga volumes of Final Fantasy and Ragnarok Online parody manga. Publishers including Ichijinsha and Ohzora have published countless volumes of Fate/stay night and Melty Blood parody anthologies. Ichijinsha has published 30 volumes of Comic Party anthology manga so far. In many cases these anthology and 4 koma parody manga are licensed by the original distributor, making them “officially sanctioned,” but publishers like Oak Comics and OKS Comix that publish commercial collections of fan created hentai parody doujinshi of titles including Final Fantasy, Dead or Alive, Love Hina, Chobits, Bleach, Eureka 7, Naruto, School Rumble, and so forth, seemingly do so with impunity, either relying on copyright protection because they’re publishing parody, or just continuing to publish because they’ve not been ordered to stop. These erotic anthologies may be published commercially and may be widely distributed, but I doubt that they are, or should be considered “officially sanctioned” extensions of established franchises.

To simply and directly answer your question, complimentary publications like novelizations and manga adaptations are very common in Japan’s anime and manga industry. And fan or guest artist created spin-off, parody, and homage manga are very common, especially for popular franchises like Final Fantasy, Ragnarok Online, Dead or Alive, Di-Gi-Charat, Naruto, and Comic Party. However, exactly how “official” these supplemental works are varies depending on the content and publisher. Supplemental manga range from unauthorized, to authorized superfluous merchandising, to official direct continuity extensions of the original source.