InuYasha Unflipped
Viz's new The Rumic World website went fully live yesterday with the free English premiere of Rumiko Takahashi's Rin-ne manga. But having her new manga debut in English the same day it came out in Japan wasn't the only interesting thing on the website. In its new blog section, the webmaster mentioned that starting with volume 38 of InuYasha, the English version will no longer be flipped. Instead, it'll now be read in the proper Japanese way of reading right to left.
Alright, welcome to 2003 InuYasha! Glad you could finally join us! Seriously though, I no idea what took Viz so long to make this change. Granted, prior to the 21st century English translated manga was almost always flipped so that it was read like an English book so as to not confuse readers. When the InuYasha manga first started coming out in the US, having authentic unflipped manga was still just getting off the ground & not being done with every title. But for some reason Viz remained persistent in having Takahashi's titles- both Ranma 1/2 & InuYasha- in flipped form. Heaven knows why. With the Ranma English manga ending in 2006, I'm pretty sure that left InuYasha as the ONLY translated manga that was still being flipped. So finally, in the year 2009, Viz has finally started to think sanely about this whole flipping thing.
The flipping isn't the only change either. The manga will now be coming out monthly, making it a lot faster for English fans to finish the series (though we still have a ways to go). & for those who wish that Viz go back to the beginning & start releasing it unflipped, Viz is doing just that! Well, sort of. They're adding InuYasha to their Viz Big series, meaning they'll go back to the beginning to put three volumes into one giant, cheaply priced release. & of course, this version will be authentic right-to-left.
Source: http://www.therumicworld.com/blog.php?id=4