deoridhe | Oct. 17th, 2003

I had a totally otaku moment a couple of days ago, and I thought I would share. For those not in the know, otaku is the Japanese word for 'fan,' and is quite derogatory. Of course, American fangirls have embraced the term with glee, and I'm one of them; it is far less derogatory in the U.S. About half of the manga (trade paperbacks of comics) coming out of Japan now has stopped mirroring the image to render it readable in left-to-right fashion. Instead, they leave the art as is and simply translate the text bubbles, resulting in manga that are "backwards." About half my manga are like this, and the ones I re-read frequently (Pet Shop of Horrors, Fake, Vampire Princess Miyu, Demon Diary, Kodocha, Vampire Game, etc...) are right-to-left.

I finished re-reading one of them (I think it was Fake) and picked up an American paperback, opening to where I had left a bookmark. I then proceeded to turn the page the wrong way and get extremely confused as to why the book was written left-to-right instead of right-to-left. It took me a minute... and then I remembered I was American and we read left-to-right.

I'm giving all my books back and I'll take my sign quietly. ;_;

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