This week's poll was inspired by Karonhioktha. Does the direction you read matter to you? I remember back in the day some English publishers flipped their releases to go left to right (instead of the original right to left). There have also been magazine series that were ported over to webtoons and removed all the paneling, so it's just single panels from top to bottom.

You can submit poll ideas here
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Previous Poll Results:
Question: Should someone be punished for a crime that they have no recollection of committing (i.e., due to amnesia)?
Choices:
No - votes: 912 (28.4%)
Yes - votes: 2294 (71.6%)
There were 3206 total votes.
The poll ended: April 17th 2021

Now what if there's a known transfer of consciousness (like body swapping). Should consequences go with the body or the soul?

________________
A just ruler amongst tyrants

wtf kind of wording... Like, you gotta specify whether this means how you enjoy comic styles in general or how you end up reading comics, cause that example can go either way

Anwyays, I prefer reading in continuous scrolling/webtoon mode regardless of whether it's in webtoon, manga, or comic form. But in terms of paneling, whatever is the most effective way for the author to tell their story. There's been a trend of taking manhwa and adapting them for webtoon form, and I don't read enough of those to give an opinion on that, but if that's the way people read comics now, go for it.

Last edited by Ceiye at 4:34 pm, Apr 17 2021

I'm just glad we no longer have to suffer through western publishers doing stupid things like mirroring pages and rearranging panels.
I don't even know why they did that, it's not like it's hard for a new reader to adapt. I remember picking up a DBZ volume when I was a kid and it was no trouble at all, the disclaimer on the inner cover made it quite clear how to read.

One word: marketability. Back in the 70's and up to the mid-2000's, media companies had the delusion that selling Japanese media to Americans wouldn't work unless they removed all the Japanese elements of the product. This extended from re-editing movies and shows to censoring and altering artwork to bastardizing the translation. The irony is that it resulted in Japanese media never gaining the marketability and foothold that Western-based products were able to gain; with perhaps the SOLE exceptions of Robotech, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Pokemon: The First Movie.

________________

Original direction. However author did it is how it should be. Don't mirror and whatnot, it look weird from time to time when mirrored...

________________
I am envoy from nowhere in nowhere. Nobody and nothing have sent me. And though it is impossible I exist. © Trimutius

I just want to throw in the donuts of Pokemon there. Honestly, those jelly filled donuts looked so much like japanese onigiri! XD

Seriously though, agree with both posts. Anime und Manga was assumed to be too odd to be marketable without "westernizing" it. I remember reading an old mirrored version of Beserk - it actually confused the hell out of me, because there were panels that obviously didn't work that way.

Minority here ,I prefer left to right .
It isn't really a deciding factor, but I've come to notice that when I'm tired, my reading speed drops when it's done differently.

It's also funny how the art quality sometimes drops when they mirror the images.

Doesn't matter as long as it's the original direction, obviously.

Don't matter really. Nowadays I probably prefer the manga way, since I don't read western comics. Web stuff tends to be just a few squares and then you click for the next page.

Doesn't matter as long as it's the original direction

________________
I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

Sometimes I have temporary trouble adjusting between japanese manga and korean webtoons because of the switchover, but it's not, like, better or worse either way (I don't make this mistake with American comics because the art style is SO different). There are some subtleties with paneling that good authors can make use of in one reading direction that ends up looking wrong in the other direction, so scanlators definitely shouldn't "flip" a manga to make it read left to right.

And they usually don't 🙂 I feel like I haven't seen that happen in around 15 years.

Well not just that even official english publishers don't flip anymore and put a guide on how to read manga instead. Like "You are holding it wrong read right to left like this" and the have a picture as example

________________
I am envoy from nowhere in nowhere. Nobody and nothing have sent me. And though it is impossible I exist. © Trimutius

Top to bottom, or more like I prefer ways that load the pages before you reach them.