notes: veil
the first time i ever read veil, the site had uploaded the chapters in the western front-to-back style without flipping the japanese dialogue and panels. while i do enjoy understanding what the characters say now there was something so endearing to me about the disjointed dialogue and odd responses. it reminded me a little of growing up around old french copies of ducktales, or astérix et obélix, and trying to use my very rudimentary knowledge of romance language to translare enough keywords to parse it. luckily veil is a managa pretty enough to hold up to the accusation, and i have fun imagining it happening in greece or in russia.
here, an example: you can read this from bottom to top and understand the conversation easily. but if you read from top to bottom you can watch two slightly odd people navigate endless stone staircases while talking. my first impression of aleksander was a man who offers emma a job, watches her change the subject away from it, and then tells her that the finest tea in the city can be found at the police station he just tried to hire her at. and it works. the joke lands for emma, who laughs, just as well as it landed for me.
[ post was abandoned because it won't let me embed images on here unless i pay, but i did finish typing it up on my tumblr ]