The category list along the line has not only "Video Games," but also "Anime," something I've thoroughly neglected thus far. That changes now!
I read a fair amount of manga both in my spare time and as a writer for anime.advancedmn.com. It used to be that when manga came over here, it was mirrored over to Left-to-Right format. Then, around the time Tokyopop busted out onto the manga scene, Right-To-Left became the standard. This enhanced the authenticity of the release and also actually made less work for the Western distributor. Along with this came the inclusion of a lot of Japanese words and honorifics to further complete that authentic feeling.
At the same time, however, this change served to limit the audience that manga could be marketed to. No longer is it just a black-and-white comic book, but it's now this foreign thing you have to read backwards, with names that end with "kun" and "chan."
That doesn't seem to concern most distributors. The vast majority of manga wouldn't have an audience outside of that hardcore audience so familiar with the medium and its characteristics. You're just not going to market Kuchi Kuchi Pachinko to a broad audience. No, that's not a real manga title.
One example that bucks the trend is Dark Horse's Blade of the Immortal. Dark Horse has been in the manga market longer than just about anyone else, and Blade of the Immortal is one of the longest-running US manga releases. Before manga was cool, Manji was slicing dudes up left-to-right-style. Artist and writer Hiroaki Samura didn't want to just sit back and let it go mirrored without his intervention, however. In one of the best compromises I've seen, Samura requested that instead of just flipping the pages, he would actually reorganize the panels and even redraw them if necessary to allow a left-to-right read without losing his original intention in the change.
One instance of a flip-that-almost-happened concerns Tezuka's manga Black Jack, distributed by the passionate people over at Vertical. Tezuka's estate wanted the manga flipped for a broader appeal in the US. With manga as legendary and significant as Tezuka's, it's easy to see why.
Many of Tezuka's works have been flipped to good effect, including Buddha and MW. In the case of Black Jack, Vertical argued - successfully - that this would compromise the manga. For example, the doctor Black Jack's iconic scar would be on the wrong side of his face, they explained. This would be akin to swapping the S on Superman's crest. Yeah, sure, it's recognizable, but it's hardly the same thing. See Serdar Yegulalp's review of the book on AMN for a bit more about this.
Nowadays, flipping manga is mostly looked down on the same way editing anime is. It's only done for mainstream appeal and it compromises the work. However, due to the higher level of author control in manga, you're more likely to see authors exerting their control to influence how a book comes out here.
If I'm going to talk about my opinion directly, I'll say this: However the author feels it should be done is how it should be done. If the author wants the book flipped for US release, then I see no problem flipping it, cases like Black Jack notwithstanding.
As long as the manga is coherent and faithful, then I consider myself lucky to be reading it.
What do you think? Should the manga be left faithful at all costs? Or is it 'down with those weird backwards books?'
I read a fair amount of manga both in my spare time and as a writer for anime.advancedmn.com. It used to be that when manga came over here, it was mirrored over to Left-to-Right format. Then, around the time Tokyopop busted out onto the manga scene, Right-To-Left became the standard. This enhanced the authenticity of the release and also actually made less work for the Western distributor. Along with this came the inclusion of a lot of Japanese words and honorifics to further complete that authentic feeling.
At the same time, however, this change served to limit the audience that manga could be marketed to. No longer is it just a black-and-white comic book, but it's now this foreign thing you have to read backwards, with names that end with "kun" and "chan."
That doesn't seem to concern most distributors. The vast majority of manga wouldn't have an audience outside of that hardcore audience so familiar with the medium and its characteristics. You're just not going to market Kuchi Kuchi Pachinko to a broad audience. No, that's not a real manga title.
One example that bucks the trend is Dark Horse's Blade of the Immortal. Dark Horse has been in the manga market longer than just about anyone else, and Blade of the Immortal is one of the longest-running US manga releases. Before manga was cool, Manji was slicing dudes up left-to-right-style. Artist and writer Hiroaki Samura didn't want to just sit back and let it go mirrored without his intervention, however. In one of the best compromises I've seen, Samura requested that instead of just flipping the pages, he would actually reorganize the panels and even redraw them if necessary to allow a left-to-right read without losing his original intention in the change.
One instance of a flip-that-almost-happened concerns Tezuka's manga Black Jack, distributed by the passionate people over at Vertical. Tezuka's estate wanted the manga flipped for a broader appeal in the US. With manga as legendary and significant as Tezuka's, it's easy to see why.
Many of Tezuka's works have been flipped to good effect, including Buddha and MW. In the case of Black Jack, Vertical argued - successfully - that this would compromise the manga. For example, the doctor Black Jack's iconic scar would be on the wrong side of his face, they explained. This would be akin to swapping the S on Superman's crest. Yeah, sure, it's recognizable, but it's hardly the same thing. See Serdar Yegulalp's review of the book on AMN for a bit more about this.
Nowadays, flipping manga is mostly looked down on the same way editing anime is. It's only done for mainstream appeal and it compromises the work. However, due to the higher level of author control in manga, you're more likely to see authors exerting their control to influence how a book comes out here.
If I'm going to talk about my opinion directly, I'll say this: However the author feels it should be done is how it should be done. If the author wants the book flipped for US release, then I see no problem flipping it, cases like Black Jack notwithstanding.
As long as the manga is coherent and faithful, then I consider myself lucky to be reading it.
What do you think? Should the manga be left faithful at all costs? Or is it 'down with those weird backwards books?'
"You're just not going to market Kuchi Kuchi Pachinko to a broad audience. No, that's not a real manga title."
... you seriously could have fooled me.
The swapping on BotI is so seamless I didn't even realize it at first, and there's really almost nothing that would ever give it away apart from the editor's comments up front. That's the thing that struck me the most about it: it's invisible.