Why Are Some Manga Flopped?

A friend bought me an old copy of Manga Mania in a car boot sale recently. While flicking through the pages, I came upon a familiar sight, the final chapter of a manga called Black Magic. The first title released by the legendary Shirow Masamune, I immediately noted that the orientation was left to right. Checking my own personal copy of Black Magic, I noted how it had been released right to left. The question that might arise from this is “Why are some manga flopped?”

To begin, let’s explain why manga are released right to left in Japan. Japanese is written in a script consisting of Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana and is typically written top to bottom from right to left. Since contact with Europeans, Japanese can now also be written left to right horizontally. However, top to bottom from right to left remains the primary way to write books, newspapers, magazines etc in Japanese. This extends to manga as well with the vast majority of manga released in this format.

When manga began to be released in English, there was a fear that the right to left format would alienate and confuse potential customers. In an effort to appeal to a western audience, most publishers made the decision to “flop” their manga. This involves flipping the artwork backwards so that the manga is then read from left to right.

While this process did potentially allow for mainstream success, there were many downsides to this process. First and foremost, all artwork is now reversed which can create inconsistencies in the story (a famous example comes from Parasyte where the character “Migi”, which means right in Japanese, was renamed “Lefty”). Beyond that, there are many costs associated with flopping from having to retouch the art and completely replacing sound effects.

In 2002, Tokyopop decided to release a lineup called “100% Authentic Manga” which saw titles released without any flopping. This was an immediate success and many other manga publishers very quickly adopted this format. Presently, we see the vast majority of manga released in English in this right to left format now.

However, there are still manga that are released flopped on occasion. When Vertical decided to release Osamu Tezuka seinen titles, they opted to flop the artwork in an effort to appeal to western graphic novel readers. In the same way, many of Dark Horse’s Kazuo Koike omnibuses use their early translation which was left to right. Dark Horse continued to do this with the Blade of the Immortal omnibuses although the process of flopping this title was quite different.

While it is fantastic that western audiences have become far more receptive to manga released in its original format, it is also important to remember the history of flopped manga and the continuing effects as early titles are rereleased in this format. Let me know your experience with flopped manga and what your thoughts on this process are.

Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use bookdepository.com for all of your needs!