Forum - View topicAnswerman - How Did American Manga Releases Become Right-To-Left?
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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Until I read this article I did not realize how instrumental Tokyopop was in developing the US manga market.
I always have liked Tokyopop for all of the great manga that they published. Now I like them even more. Another amusing problem with Gunsmith Cats was similar to what Wyvern mentioned about Parasyte. I do not remember his name but there was a bad guy who was known for his strong right hand. There were several mentions of it and drawings of him using it. Of course when the book was flopped it became his left hand. Dark Horse caught it and changed the text to refer to his left hand, which worked well. Unfortunately, when they later published Gunsmith Cats unflopped they forgot to change the text back. So the drawings were right but the text was wrong. I do not know if they ever corrected it in a later edition. Last edited by Touma on Wed Oct 21, 2015 3:45 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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WashuTakahashi
 Posts: 415 Location: Chicago, IL |
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For the love of all things holy, get her one of these @.@ I hate purposefully damaging books >< It was painful enough being forced to highlight a write in book in English classes, since we were often graded on our annotations... |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5396 |
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I actually find flipped better to read. You knew when someone picks up a magazine and fliks through it, notice how it is always right to left.
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Dfens
Posts: 459 |
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The only title I have still flopped is Gunsmith Cats. One of my all time favorites and first Manga Series I ever read I own the single issues and the original trades for 2 reasons. First the singles have nice artwork on each cover and the trades just so have in my GSC collection. Luckily many years latter they re-released it un-flopped right to left and I use those as my reading copies.
But for years it would irk me to every now and then when Rally was left handed instead of right but with a story about firearms all the controls and levers were on the wrong side in a configuration that doesn't exist. Also in 2 parts of the story the translations didn't match the flopped images and it was a central part of both scenes too. When it comes to Manga Cows I really wish they would be thrown out of the stores. They aren't paying customers so if they get upset F-em they come in read all the books, sometimes damaging them and never buy anything. Don't they know if you want to just read all day then find some scanlation sites their every where and let paying customers grab their books for purchase. The few Western Comic stores in my area that still sell Manga actually crack down and don't allow people to read all day and not buy anything. I buy all my Manga online for the cheaper prices but also because it will be brand new and unread/damaged by these free loaders. The last time I attempted to buy a Manga volume in a B/N I couldn't wait a week for shipping online so I was willing to bite the bullet and pay full retail. Go into the store and this guy was sitting blocking the aisle where it would be on the shelf I had to ask for a employee to ask him to move since he refused when I asked nicely. Then to make matters worse it turns out he was reading the very book I wanted to purchase and the girl working had to all most fight him to get the book back since he wasn't going to buy it. When she hands it to me I say look at it, their are creases and marks all over it would you want to pay full price for a book in this condition? She apologized and I just lost it and said this is why no one wants to buy Manga at B/N anymore. That they let people sometimes a bunch of them to clog the aisle read all dam day, damage the books and let them, even though they aren't customers and yet the real paying customers like myself they don't seem to care about. Well it seemed for awhile they cracked down on it when I went in again for other regular books and was browsing but of course eventually the free loaders are back to the same old same old. |
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xchampion
 Posts: 370 Location: Idaho Falls, Idaho |
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I was one of those manga cows but I was actually polite about it. I would at least take my book to the cafe ir at least find a chair to sit on. Its not thar hard. I still see manga cows every so often but its very uncommon these days, especially with the digital market now. I still perfer to read by manga striaght from a book to this day. Its not the same thing reading from a phone, tablet, or computer. Plus nothing beats the smell of a freash new book. I think Im still the only one that opens a new book and takes a big strong whiff of it. I know its weird but I dont care. Lol.
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rahzel rose
 Subscriber Posts: 828 |
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I remember being so excited for some Viz titles back in the day, but the reversed name order just killed it for me. I could understand leaving out the honorifics, but when everyone is calling everyone by their first (given) names regardless of their relationship/closeness, I had to walk away. I'd rather just buy the books in Japanese and read them that way.
Do they still do this now? |
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PurpleWarrior13
 Posts: 2027 |
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It's particularly awkward for us because we're reading the panels/pages right-to-left, but we're still reading the text left-to-right. It's still not hard to get that down though after a few pages. |
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Parsifal24
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I bought the entire set of Miracle Girls used and that was not only flopped but they also westernized all the names not so much annoying as sort of an odd artifact of times past.
I owned the first four volumes of the Utena manga and the first three volumes were about the size of a trade paperback and flopped while the fourth was the smaller Japanese style. While my B&N doesn't have the problem with people camping in the Manga section mostly because they moved them to full sized bookshelves. |
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Herald Of JOJO
 Posts: 144 Location: Malaysia |
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This isn't shocking that this specific thing happened, but this is definitely news to me. This is quite an informative article.
As for people folding books, the stories I've read here are freakin' bone-chilling. They're tenfold worse than what I've experienced. When I used to go to a bookstore more often than not (before I realized they were never gonna have what I wanted which was MANGA), my dad was actually quite careful with me wanting to buy books, specifically comics. I believe it was the Spider-Man encyclopedia that I own to this day but I'm not actually sure. Anyway, back on point. My dad stopped from getting the book in favor of a less, as it was, "bent" copy. As you can imagine, I was slightly salty about the deal but thinking back, I'm happy that he did that. If I only had my current level of maturity when I got it because I ended up wrecking the book anyway, lol. Not as bad as what was told on this thread but worse than the condition of the first copy I saw. |
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RestLessone
 Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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I had a friend who would damage his books while reading them. Lent him books and they often came back in pretty bad shape... I remember being sorta hurt because he didn't manage to take good care of my things. Eventually I just stopped lending them, though I felt bad about it.
Anyway, manga cows. I saw them at Borders mostly. I called them "leeches" instead, though. Annoyed me when they would bend volumes. A few of my InuYasha volumes are flipped. (I own a random bunch from throughout the series.) I think VIZ kept with flipping that title longer? I also have my coveted flipped Ginga Legend Weed volumes. They do have dust jackets, though, and are in nice shape all things considered. |
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85cmpersecond
 Posts: 10 Location: USA |
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Ahh, brings back memories... I don't mind people reading a book in the cafe/flipping through something to quickly preview it/moving when politely asked, but I used to see people who literally would lay down across the aisle and hold the book above their heads to read
 (really, this is not your bedroom thanks)
I'm not super picky about my books, but I used to lend someone manga back in the day, and a few times they came back either with badly bent corners, or with crumbs or oil stains in the pages, ughhhh... (but at least they gave them back? A few other people just didn't return stuff at all, so I'm just a book hoarder now, not a lender lol) |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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About flopping, I always felt that despite Torren Smith's enthusiasm, he was so very wrong about wanting manga to be changed like that.
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TsukasaElkKite
 Posts: 3964 |
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When I go to Barnes and Noble I have to resist the urge to kick the manga cows and tell them to get out of my way.
Tokyopop's work on the .hack series was GARBAGE. The translator should have done research! |
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GVman
 Posts: 729 |
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I think I saw a manga cow proper only once. We don't have any book stores near where I live, and I started getting into manga towards the end of the bubble.
Don't forget to mention Lone Wolf and Cub, which Dark Horse continues to print flipped, as well. I guess it's due to their status as hits with the average US comic reader, or at least what people perceive as such; recent numbers seem to hint that the average comic reader in the US is, in fact, a manga reader.
Don't they still flip it, or did they finally do an unflipped version?
It depends on the series, but yes. Naruto kept the Japanese name order, as did Rurouni Kenshi (which also kept the honorifics), but Bleach flipped names. However, I do believe they kept in where characters would call one another by their last or first names depending on their closeness, but I'm not 100% sure. |
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Touma
Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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Viz started publishing Inuyasha unflipped with volume 38, in July 2009. Since then they have published unflipped "Vizbig" omnibus editions of the entire series. Last edited by Touma on Wed Oct 21, 2015 10:14 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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