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Evolution of Hokusai's "Great Wave" (1792-1831) (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to c/historyporn@lemmy.world

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[-] Num10ck@lemmy.world 89 points 1 year ago

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.

[-] SofiaFranklyn@lemmy.world 61 points 1 year ago

Dude, I've never noticed the boats.

[-] rektdeckard@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago

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

[-] modifier@lemmy.ca 25 points 1 year ago

I learned this from hentai

[-] modifier@lemmy.ca 27 points 1 year ago

I mean manga

[-] trolololol@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Sure

[-] modifier@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year 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.

[-] littlebluespark@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Switching hands doesn't count.

[-] MIDItheKID@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year 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.