Manga

Manga is a graphic literary form in Japan that is similar to what is called graphic novels in the United States. It is typically first serialized in magazines before publication in book form. The English-translated Manga are either presented in the original format of the Japanese comics, which means the only substitutions are the English translations for the hiragana or katakana Japanese characters; or they do the translation and flip the pages.

In English, we read comics from left to right starting the book with its spine on the left while the Japanese read and write their comics from right to left with the spine initially starting on the right. Keeping the Japanese format makes the translation publishing process less expensive and faster. Though this doesn’t make one bilingual perhaps it could make one bi-visual. Such English translated Japanese Manga often include instructions on the last page (the common first page of English books) that the reader should start at the other end and showing the right-to-left order of reading a typical Manga page. If you have a Manga that you would like to have reviewed; or if you would like to do a review of a Manga, please contact us at https://www.graphicmedicine.org/contact/.