

Sorry if this has an obvious answer, I'm pretty new to the anime community.

I've seen covers of doujinshi for certain pairings/fandoms I like, but from
what I've seen of the contents, most of them get pretty steamy. I really like
the concept of fan-published works and seeing certain characters interact, but
I don't feel comfortable reading something so...explicit? Are there doujinshi
that are based around platonic/fluffy romance interactions, or is this
typically the standard for doujinshi? (And is there a way I can tell a
platonic doujinshi from others?)


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doujinshi
Is doujinshi always sexual?


Though it is common for such themes to be done, doujinshi are basically almost
always fan made manga/stories, which means they can have any kind of
storyline. They are almost never made by professionals or with custom stories,
and are instead just derived from a popular story, but with a "What if"
scenario, which can be whatever the author of the doujinshi decides it to be.
Of course, this usually is Pairings, especially when the main manga does
little to satisfy that Romance urge, or even worse, tease it, for those fans.
So overall, they do tend to be Sexual, but that is not a necessity for it to
be doujinshi.


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The term Doujinshi is rather broad, encompassing any self-published work.
Sometimes, although rarely, even big name authors have created some doujinshi.

Wikipedia has a pretty decent
[article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C5%8Djinshi) which defines it as:

> Dōjinshi (同人誌{どうじんし}), often transliterated as doujinshi) is the Japanese
> term for self-published works, usually magazines, manga or novels. Dōjinshi
> are often the work of amateurs, though some professional artists participate
> as a way to publish material outside the regular industry.

These self-published works are almost always inspired by work created by
someone else, rather than being original works. Since the authors usually
don't have original ideas to write about, instead they want to express their
love for a series by writing stories that could have happened, which is why
you're often seeing these sexual situations in doujinshi. Sex is popular, and
it is generally abstained from in source material. Thus writing about it is a
good way to make your doujinshi popular easily, since many people will have
had similar thoughts while reading the source.

As far as if there are doujinshi that do not involve sexual situations, the
answer is of course. Since we are talking about self-published works, there is
really no limit to what kind of stories you could find, just like in any fan
fiction.

Finally, your question about finding out what is in them ahead of time, has
already been asked here: [How do I figure out the contents of
doujinshi?](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/25708/how-do-i-figure-
out-the-contents-of-doujinshi) While there isn't an answer to that question
posted, it seems the consensus from the comments is that outside of learning
about the contents from a doujin circle, it is rather hard to know what to
expect.


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