The curious case of Japanese reading: Nagoya’s famous bookstore

It was just the other day that I noticed something. Japanese people read books from back to front. An instant spark of curiosity had me enquire about this reading style and led me to the front of a bookstore in Nagoya - Japan's famous Tsutaya Books.

Spread across three floors, thousands of books were displayed up front. Yet, I couldn't read one since all of them were in Japanese. I asked if there were any English books available, but the answer was disappointing.

Although Japanese people used to be avid book lovers in the past, reading isn't as popular now among them. These endorsement strategies are aimed at bringing readers back to reading books. Japanese people are huge fans of 'Manga' stories. 'Manga' means comics in Japanese. An entire section of the bookstore is filled with these comic books.

I picked one up and flipped through it; my suspicion was right. The book is read from back to front. That means what would be the front cover of a Malayalam book is the back cover in Japan, and the back cover would be at the front. Japanese words are actually written from left to right, just like Malayalam. However, there are unique traits to their writing style, which leads to this inverse way of reading.

Most books follow the traditional 'Tategaki' writing style, where text is written vertically from top to bottom. These vertical lines are arranged in columns ordered from right to left. With this style of writing, books can only be read from back to front.

Climbing up the staircase from the ground to the first floor at Tsutaya Bookstore brings you right in front of a massive bookshelf. Though people don't read books, there is quite a crowd taking video reels in front of it - another clever strategy to draw people toward books. Take a look at the photo accompanying this article; I bet you would want to shoot one too.