A number of concerned parents recently complained to Tuoi Tre about the difficulties the right-to-left layout adopted by the Vietnamese versions of Japanese and Chinese mangas pose to their young children.

Many of the currently circulated Vietnamese versions of Japanese and Chinese mangas now adopt the right-to-left layout, which are these two countries’ traditional page layout and reading style.

A number of parents are increasingly concerned that this layout is doing harm to their young children’s reading habits, and perhaps their eyesight.

According to a Tuoi Tre investigation, most Vietnamese versions of mangas are released by Kim Dong and Tre Publishers.

Kim Dong releases translations of roughly five Japanese mangas every month. The copyright holders always request that the original books’ right-to-left layout and photos be used in the translated version.

Now that Vietnam has entered several conventions on copyright ownership, including the Bern Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, local publishers have no choice but to accept this request.

According to Cao Xuan Son, from Kim Dong, all of his company’s translated versions of Japanese mangas adopt the right-to-left arrangement.

“As Japanese publishers are really insistent on this, we’ve explained to readers that they just have to familiarize themselves with this Japanese cultural trait,” Son added.

Previously, as several Japanese mangas were translated while violating the originals’ copyright, the local publishers scanned the pages and flipped them over to give the translations the conventional left-to-right layout, Son recalled.

“This resulted in a funny thing, where the left-right position correlation, including the characters’ hands wielding the swords and their hair partings, is reversed,” said Thanh Nam, from Tre Publisher.

The page scanning and flipping stopped as soon as Vietnam signed the copyright ownership conventions.

Among the nine comics that Tre Publisher is releasing, they can scan and flip the pages of a series called “Dragon Tiger Gate”, purchased from a Taiwanese publisher who is less stringent about the layout.

Meanwhile, the other eight series, all from Japan, will have the right-to-left layout.

However, a number of readers said that they find the unconventional layout a bit annoying at first, but later adjusted to it.

The new series, such as the new “Doremon”, “Shin – The Pencil boy” and “Conan” released by Kim Dong Publisher have all been successful.

Nam also noted that on Tre Publisher’s fanpage, many readers have expressed their support for the right-to-left layout to be adopted in the coming Vietnamese version of the series “1/2 Prince”.