The thing is you value reading "flow" but this is only a problem for YOU, not a problem for everybody. It's much like the problem of motion sickness in fps games. It just doesn't affect most people. However, the problems caused by flipping and mirroring affect all readers negatively.
Reading a flipped or mirrored manga is analagous to watching a movie in pan+scan. It's a mangled version of the original work, and is not acceptable. If reading the text in the wrong direction messes with your brain, then your solution is not to flip and mirror, but to learn Japanese.
Yes, the goal is to change as little as possible of the artwork, not the language. When you are translating into a different language of course the goal is to give the best reading experience and just leaving things untranslated for the sake of convenience is not good practice. Scott brought up the Otaking and another thing the Otaking made a point off was scanlators and fansubbers superimposing translated text on top of the actual image or video and the reason why this is a bad practice is that this is also screwing with the art.
If reading the text in the wrong direction messes with your brain, then your solution is not to flip and mirror, but to learn Japanese.
It's adequate just to get used to it by reading enough manga, which I haven't yet. However, your argument that it doesn't affect most people is wrong; I'll bet most people who haven't read very many manga notice issues with the flow at times.
If the goal was simply to change as little as possible, high-quality translators would leave the honorifics in and the like.
This is not true. As we learned from the Otaking, a high quality translator from the school of dynamic equivalence will remove such things.
Did you read what you were responding to? The fact that high-quality translators remove such things, and indeed they should, was part of my point.
Equating mirroring to pan+scan or to superimposing text is going too far, however, because mirroring doesn't destroy any of the original art, while the others do.
Another potential solution is to write the English from right to left, but although this would be more like the original, it would probably take more getting used to.
Flipped is better. To say otherwise is rank weeabooism.
I would think that you, as an artist, would want to see the artwork in it's original form. I have no problem with the text flow, and I think it is just a matter of getting used to it. It always weirds me out when I am reading a Japanese edition of a comic and then I read the American version. It seems awkward by comparison. Not a big deal, especially if the artists are good draftsmen, (I read all of Sanctuary flipped, recently), but I must throw in my opinion that to sacrifice original artwork for minor text flow issues is bleh.
I would think that you, as an artist, would want to see the artwork in it's original form.
I really don't think that just mirroring an image makes a significant difference. I've heard that some mangaka don't like the way their stuff looks flipped, but no artist likes they way their stuff looks when it's flipped. That's why you flip it when you're drawing -- it makes it easier to see the mistakes. For anyone else coming to it with fresh eyes, it's irrelevant.
I have no problem with the text flow, and I think it is just a matter of getting used to it.
To be clear, I think it's a non-issue most of the time. But there are certain instances (and I don't have any examples handy, but next time I come across one, I'll post it) where there is apparently no good way to letter it without causing confusion. It doesn't make it impossible to figure out, but it takes you out long enough to break the spell. It's like when someone stacks panels on the left (in L. to R.) in a way that makes you miss the bottom panel -- you always realize it after a few seconds and go back, but by that time the damage to the reading experience is done, and instead of being in the story, you're just looking at a book again.
Comments
Reading a flipped or mirrored manga is analagous to watching a movie in pan+scan. It's a mangled version of the original work, and is not acceptable. If reading the text in the wrong direction messes with your brain, then your solution is not to flip and mirror, but to learn Japanese.
Equating mirroring to pan+scan or to superimposing text is going too far, however, because mirroring doesn't destroy any of the original art, while the others do.
Another potential solution is to write the English from right to left, but although this would be more like the original, it would probably take more getting used to.