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Things to know about the Great Wave

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Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#61

Post by cubefox »

n_plus_1_acc wrote: post #52
KPGv2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a bunch of novels in Japanese, and every single one is vertically-written. Same with all the comic books I own. I think maybe a couple children's manga I had years ago were horizontally-written, but we're talking something I haven't laid eyes on in decades, so I might be mis-remembering.

Mangas often mix and match, depenfong on what best fits the image.

If it's not done a lot on the web, I blame CSS. With horizontal text you scroll the page from top to bottom, with vertical text from right to left. Most HTML/CSS seems to be optimized for the former. E.g. vertical percentage margins don't work like horizontal ones, and CSS3 columns have similar issues.

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#62

Post by blululu »

kinj28 wrote: post #58
AnonHP wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historical Japanese text, written vertically, is read top to bottom and right to left (like in those prints). On the other hand, more modern text (including what’s more common now) is read left to right when written horizontally. There are some more variations on directionality. Nevertheless, the picture does look and convey a different impression when flipped.

I wonder the logic and even history of why right to left came into being. Is there any benefit in choosing a directionality of one vs another. One thing that comes to my mind- book binding is done on the left edge of the book/news paper. So if folds are created you would go read left paper first and then to the right. Now if you are parsing left to right at higher level- At lower level wouldn’t it become consistency…

It’s kinda of arbitrary. For ink:graphite writing top to bottom and right to left has the advantage of not smudging for right handers. For more durable media (carving/etching/chiseling) I think it is more arbitrary.

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#63

Post by [deleted] »

yumraj wrote: post #44
bdowling wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s rare in modern times, but sometimes you may encounter a sign board written horizontally right-to-left, as in this sign above the front entrance to the Nippon Budōkan: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nippon_Budokan_-_2...

How does one know whether to read left to right or right to left? Or is it clear from the text?

[deleted]

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#64

Post by aikinai »

yumraj wrote: post #44
bdowling wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s rare in modern times, but sometimes you may encounter a sign board written horizontally right-to-left, as in this sign above the front entrance to the Nippon Budōkan: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nippon_Budokan_-_2...

How does one know whether to read left to right or right to left? Or is it clear from the text?

txetnoC

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#65

Post by aikinai »

wccrawford wrote: post #23
cubefox wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I didn't know that! I thought vertical text was a thing of the past. Interesting.

I'm probably lower-intermediate at Japanese, so take this with a grain of salt. I find that reading vertical text feels better, even though I first learned to read horizontal text. I don't know if this is all in my mind, or it really does have some appeal to it, though.

I’m not native, but have read and spoken Japanese fluently for almost twenty years. I still can’t get used to and hate vertical text.

Maybe it’s because 99% of my Japanese context is business-related or on devices (computer, phone) and I don’t read novels, manga, etc.

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#66

Post by twelvechairs »

litenboll wrote: post #24
kaycebasques wrote: post #2

Wow! Never thought about it like this before: > Because Japanese text is read from right to left, the earliest viewers of The Great Wave would have likely read the print that way too, first encountering the boaters and then meeting the great claw of water about to swallow them. So instead of riding along with the gargantuan wave as you might in a left-to-right reading, they would face right into the massive wall of o…

I feel really dumb, but I have never even noticed the boats. In the reversed I see them very clearly, but in the original the wave is completely dominating the view (now I see the boats of course, but my focus is completely on the wave by default).

Worth noting the color of the boats varies from white to yellow to dark brown in the various prints, so sometimes they appear far more obviously than others.

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#67

Post by lidavidm »

cubefox wrote: post #12
anigbrowl wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true of documents, text messages, social media etc., but most books, magazines and other printed matter are still done vertically and R-L.

Wow, I didn't know that! I thought vertical text was a thing of the past. Interesting.

Only because Western-centric systems don't handle non-LTR text properly.

https://atadistance.net/2019/10/20/japanese-text-layout-for-...

> Baseline font metrics will never deliver great CJK typography because there are too many limitations. > > This is why InDesign J implements virtual body metrics based on Adobe proprietary table information for true high-end Japanese layout. There is no virtual body standard digital font metric standard so everybody implements the missing stuff on the fly and everybody does it different. Unfortunately the irony of it all is that Adobe played a huge role in how these limitations played out in the evolution of digital fonts, desktop publishing (DTP) and the situation we have today.

I have a Kobo reader which supports both ePub 2 and ePub 3, and IIRC you need ePub 3 in order to get proper RTL/top-to-bottom text and Japanese typesetting, as well as proper comics support (if you buy an ePub 3 manga, it'll properly flip the page turn direction and the progress bar; a CBZ or other format won't). But most other readers I run into don't understand ePub 3 properly.

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#68

Post by morbicer »

danielvaughn wrote: post #19

I've always loved this piece of art, and other similar works. One of my favorite contemporary Japanese artists borrows from that tradition, and I never get a chance to plug her work so I'll link to it here. Her name is Asuka Ohsawa: https://www.asukaohsawa.com/drawings-2#/archive/

My first association is Jed Henry's fun postmodern take

https://www.outregallery.com/collections/jed-henry

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/i4ny20/jed_henrys_a...

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#69

Post by pm215 »

jasonjamerson wrote: post #25
ginko wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's just the natural direction to draw a wave as a right handed person.

Interesting. It's a woodblock print, so I think it would have been created backwards from the final product?

The description of the Japanese woodblock printing process in https://education.asianart.org/resources/the-ukiyo-e-woodblo... says that the artist's initial drawing is pasted face down on the woodblock, which is then carved to match it. So (unless I've got myself confused) the final print will be the same way round as the artist's drawing. This also means that text in the image (like the title and the artist's signature) come out the right way round.

Re: Things to know about the Great Wave

#70

Post by albert_e »

litenboll wrote: post #24
kaycebasques wrote: post #2

Wow! Never thought about it like this before: > Because Japanese text is read from right to left, the earliest viewers of The Great Wave would have likely read the print that way too, first encountering the boaters and then meeting the great claw of water about to swallow them. So instead of riding along with the gargantuan wave as you might in a left-to-right reading, they would face right into the massive wall of o…

I feel really dumb, but I have never even noticed the boats. In the reversed I see them very clearly, but in the original the wave is completely dominating the view (now I see the boats of course, but my focus is completely on the wave by default).

I am in the same ..err ...boat.

I am now convinced there is a strong element of left-to-right versus right-to-left in the way we process images.

Fascinating!

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