Doujin Con Event Report

summary: A blog post about my experience at Doujin Con London

words: ~2,000

content: discussion of artists selling 18+ content

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The event

Doujin Con London has been advertising all over Instagram and I'd seen a few mutuals talking about it. My gf likes anime, and I like small conventions and markets, so I thought it'd be fun to go together. It's the event's first year, so I also thought it'd be fun to do a lil event report here and give my thoughts!

I got a ticket for Saturday, which was just under £14 since there was an offer on. I don't live in London, so we had to commute, which can get quite pricey. After getting the train and the tube, we arrived in Hammersmith just before 1pm. The venue itself was fairly easy to find from the tube station, you just had to orient yourself in the right direction. The venue is Novotel London West and I will say, finding it in the hotel was a bit of a challenge. The direction we entered from had a kind of misleading entrance. Luckily, there were signs and hotel staff to ask if you got lost. I think maybe a guy from Doujin Con in a lanyard directing people to the correct entrance could be beneficial in future. However, the event being held in some liminal hotel basement is a very classic old timey anime convention thing to do. So I enjoyed that immensely.

When we walked into the convention itself I was struck by the loud music playing which I admit, wasn't the greatest first impression. I remembered I saw a post on the Doujin Con Instagram about having a DJ perform a set. I assumed this would be later in the day, since I think doing this right in the middle of the day is a bit… strange. I love loud EDM but this didn't seem like quite the energy that was needed for a fairly small convention where everyone was just kinda chilling out. Luckily, the set was only 45 minutes and unless there was something happening on the stage, they just played various anime songs at a medium volume for the rest of the event, which I much preferred.

Regardless, I found myself quite excited to start looking around. The doujin circles from Japan were all grouped together at the front and I was immediately struck by the huge Touhou wall scrolls from the SunameriDrill and pythonkid circles. I occasionally see Touhou stuff at larger conventions but it felt cool to see such an emphasis on this series, and the variety of art and goods available was impressive.

I imagine the novelty of seeing actual Japanese doujinshi was probably the main draw for a lot of attendees. The choice of Japanese artists was great, since they focused on series like Touhou, Higurashi and Lucky Star, which are classic otaku media (at least in my view idk). There were also other doujinshis for sale which from my understanding were bought at Comiket by the owner of the event. Most of these doujins were on Vtubers for some reason. I have absolutely no interest in this but I assume this

After looking at the Japanese artists we moved onto the local ones. It was really refreshing to see a broad spectrum of artists that were selling wares. It was a welcome change from something like MCM, where the artist alley is so homogeneous that it always feels like my eyes are unfocusing when I walk through it. Talking with some of the vendors was fun and everyone was very nice. I overspent at HyperJapan two weeks prior, so I had a limited budget but I found a few really nice things to buy that didn't break the bank.

After walking around the vendors we took a break to find food. From the looks of it, the venue had some boring looking sandwiches and there was a hotel bar upstairs. The surrounding restaurants are a bit expensive (London moment) but we found a nice place to eat. I also made a note that the station had a Greggs and a Sainsbury's if we urgently needed cheap food. After eating we went back to have another look at the booths and take some pics of the convention for this blog post.

As we were walking around, me and the gf were discussing the merits of the convention so far. We noticed that there was a stage and a few talks and performances but this seemed like the least thought out part of the event. This makes sense, as it's still growing and they haven't managed to build up a reputation yet. I imagine finding guests was a challenge and next year it'll be a little easier. But still, I was surprised by how underutilised this aspect was.

While the stage might have been a victim of poor planning, a lot of boring but important convention essentials were definitely accounted for. Notably, there were two water coolers available with free water. I immediately felt reassured when I saw this because a hallmark of convention horror stories is having no or limited water. The toilets were also really nice and clean and I never had to wait in line. The convention experience itself never felt cramped or anything, as the space was really large, with plenty of places to rest. While some of this stuff seems like the bare minimum, there are countless cases of new and established conventions that don't get this right, so it feels important to highlight in this post.

Just as me and the gf were remarking how the stage had been a bit quiet, we were caught off guard by the sudden appearance of Kaptain Rock, the coolest guy of all time. I was ignorant to the gospel of Kaptain Rock before this event, but to explain briefly: he is a man dressed up in a blonde wig and sci-fi glasses who has attached a guitar string to a lightsaber (????) and performs original songs. His mission, to quote from his website, is “to come to the Earth to save kids and adults on The Earth by teaching everyone how to play the guitar”.

What followed was a kind of awkward performance, as attendees were starting to leave at this point in the day so there was basically no one in the crowd by the end. However, it was also quite impressive and hilarious tbh. The highlight of his set for me was when he started playing the Space Battleship Yamato theme, encouraging everyone to join in and sing the lyrics. No one did this except my gf who somehow knew the words. When his set was over she paid £3 to have him sign a Kaptain Rock flyer which she swears is the best £3 she's ever spent.

After all the excitement of Kaptain Rock we decided to take our leave since it was pretty late in the day and as I said, most other attendees were leaving too. Despite being a small convention our legs were getting tired and we still had to get the train back. I felt pretty satisfied with our experience though, and I'll sum up my thoughts as a whole at the end of this post.

Feedback and Ideas for next year

I had a lot of fun at Doujin Con but I have criticised it a bit here. I don't think this would be fair if I wasn't also offering tangible solutions and feedback, so here are some things I personally would like to see at Doujin Con in the future:

Some kind of low stakes cosplay competition.

I really love looking at old pics of cosplayers at Comiket and other small conventions. I think cosplay really embodies the spirit of doujinshi so embracing this would be really beneficial to Doujin Con. I saw a few cosplayers at the event but a competition could incentivise even more people to dress up. It doesn't have to be a super fancy craftsmanship contest like you see at bigger conventions. Just something like a best dressed competition based on whoever happens to look the coolest on the day.

Embrace NSFW content

Whether you like it or not, a lot of people associate doujins with porn. However, I didn't really see any of this at the event. Sure, there were some doujinshi that had mildly suggestive content but that was about it. This led me to wonder if there was a rule against vendors selling really explicit stuff. This makes sense, because obviously selling porn and then openly advertising that you're selling it opens up a whole can of worms. However, I think with carefully implemented rules, it would actually be pretty cool if Doujincon wholeheartedly embraced NSFW content.

Just having dedicated vendors in a specific area just for NSFW stuff could be interesting. By allowing this, they'd be serving a niche not served by other similar conventions. For example, MCM and HyperJapan pitch themselves as family events and I know this is actually quite annoying for some attendees and vendors. I didn't see any kids or families at Doujincon, so it's not like they would be alienating people by making the event 18+. In a world of aggressive online censorship of NSFW content, getting together with some perverts in a basement to buy some anime porn would probably be quite appealing to a lot of people (I'm being 100% serious).

Greater variety of doujins

In the future, I'd really like to see a greater variety of doujins available. This is difficult because I imagine convincing overseas artists to come here is a challenge. I would be interested to see if the Japanese artists actually made a profit at the event and if visiting again is financially viable. Plus, I imagine buying loads of doujins from Comiket is not cheap. I understand you have to be choosy with the stuff you buy. However, I think some variety in the franchises represented makes the event more fun and novel!

Specifically, I really enjoyed seeing the Yuri doujinshi artists that were vending. As a himejoshi I'm biased, but it would be cool to see an even bigger emphasis on Yuri and BL especially. I think these two genres are really popular right now, but still aren't really served properly by mainstream anime/manga fandom. No matter how many “toxic yuri” stickers there are in artist alleys, I don't often see fanart for actual Yuri series. However, there's definitely an appetite for this kind of content. I think Doujin Con could really carve out a niche for themselves by highlighting even more Yuri and BL artists.

Better curation of artists (within reason)

As I said earlier, the variety in the vendors is what made the event really notable to me. However, there were a few vendors that seemed a bit out of place. It seemed like they accepted pretty much anyone that applied. Once again, as an event in its first year, spreading the word to people was probably a challenge. I imagine just to fill space they had to accept everyone. I can see why this would be great if you're a first time vendor and don't have much experience in applying to events. As an attendee walking around the event though, it felt a little disorganised and it was unclear how some people's work related to Doujin Con. Taking care that every vendor fits Doujin Con's theme is a good way forward!

Overall Thoughts

If you're looking for a smaller convention with variety I would really recommend Doujin Con since overall, I really enjoyed the day out! However, I'm not sure I'll commute in again if the event doesn't grow or innovate, since it's an expensive trip for a small convention. I also don't think it would be worth it in its current incarnation to buy a weekend ticket.

Despite this, I think if you're a London based anime fan there's no reason not to attend. I'm really hoping that Doujin Con happens next year as a refreshing event like this is definitely needed in the UK anime convention landscape!

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