Manga Lecture #2

I suppose I should mention the reason why manga is read the way it is (right to left). Japan was originally a scroll based reading culture, and to read a traditional scroll, you would hold the bulk in one hand (usually the non-dominate one) and unravel it with your dominant hand. As the majority of people were right handed, this meant you would generally hold the scroll in the left hand, while pulling with the right. Japanese therefore required writers to write in a way where you would read as the scroll was unwound. Manga carried on this tradition, even in book form, due to the language’s orientation. Today, even when translated into English, many companies keep the original style of right to left paneling, so as to keep the flow and the author’s intent intact.

However, there are some that are published in a technique called “mirroring.” This is when the panels are flipped around, to accommodate western readers. In the early days of manga publishing within the United States, many were published in this way, for it was believed too many people would be confused by the shift in reading styles. But with the growing popularity and demand for current manga, this process was mostly scrapped, due to the effort and time it took to completely remodel the mode in which the original comic was published in. While this practice is still continued in some companies, for the most part it has fallen into disuse.

Next up is popularity.