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[–] 89 points 2 years ago (15 children)

note that Japanese read pictures from right to left, while Western readers read left to right. Westerners view the last image as an awesome wave and usually miss the boats, while Japanese viewers relate to the boats first and then feel how doomed they are.

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  • [–] 36 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    I never imagined how this would apply to images. Fascinating! I wonder what other art has a totally different tone to native RTL readers.

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  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago (4 children)
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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    But to be serious for a moment, I just happen to be watching The Great War Of Archimedes right now and it is only now dawning on me how much of the action takes place from right to left.

    Now, I believe this film was based on a Manga, so it is less surprising that it would inherently adopt that visual language, but now I am going to be watching all Japanese cinema more closely to see how fundamentally RTL impacts the approach to film making.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago

    Well now I'm just confused about how I am supposed to read the image. Like... It's numbered 1 2 3 4. Is that top left to bottom right? Which one is the "last" one? Which one is the "first" one?

    I could probably just look it up, but ehh.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    How could you miss the 3 boats?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    try flipping the picture horizontally, its a very different experience

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