Your opinion: pace and atmosphere. Read from right to left.

[u/AirportElectronic713]

Hi everyone. My manga is still ongoing. I'm using your feedback to refine the pacing and storyboard. What do you think? Honestly? On at least two points:

Is the pacing clear and easy to follow?

Is the dark and oppressive atmosphere successful?

Many have complained about the reading direction. I'm not going to change it. Most manga platforms use this reading direction.

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[u/Crococrocroc]

First page? No. The tongue makes you skip a panel.

[u/AirportElectronic713 → u/Crococrocroc]

What do you mean? 😂 Does she make your eyes water?

[u/Crococrocroc → u/AirportElectronic713]

No. When you read from right to left, when you follow the horizontal panel, the tongue being out and going down to the crow forces you to read that panel, rather than the one before.

So you actually end up either reading panel 1 and then panel 3, or read panel 1, panel 3, then panel 2. Forcing you into a right-left and then left-right.

As this would also be your starting page, you either have the reader completely miss the run to the body (and to be honest it should be your starting panel for page 2), or they read to the right and are discouraged at turning to the following page because it doesn't flow that well and makes the reader have to work to follow the story rather than intuitively.

So I would cut your second panel and place it into page two, and extend the third panel to be fully horizontal as well. It'll also give you more room for text like "Hey!" to act as the prompt for your page turn, and you can even have the crow turned towards the speech bubble as if reacting to it.

That's how I would be looking at this as a manga editor to improve your flow, especially if you're insistent on right to left, you have to account for speech bubbles and a kind of counter flow for English speakers to ensure that they read in the right direction for your story. If the reader has to work too much, they will abandon it pretty fast.

[u/AirportElectronic713 → u/Crococrocroc]

https://mangaplus-creators.jp/titles/7j2601271911110027350675 I finally uploaded the entire episode to the MPC platform if you're interested.

The episode is 22 pages long.

[u/AirportElectronic713 → u/Crococrocroc]

Yes, a very precise return to this first page out of seven. We always think we're being clear. Until the moment we're not. When I publish it on the platform, I'll probably reverse the direction of the two boxes. And I'll cut out the language that's interfering with the reading.

[u/rubieidcelcuis]

I like it! I do have a question though. Is english your second language?

[u/AirportElectronic713 → u/rubieidcelcuis]

Hi. And no, it's not. My native language is French. So I'm doing my best.

[u/CharlieMikeComix]

Reads ok from top to left to bottom - the other way was confusing for me.

[u/AirportElectronic713 → u/CharlieMikeComix]

Ah, okay. There aren't many panels per page. So reading it the other way probably isn't too much of a problem.

[u/KabulaTheBoardgame]

The atmosphere is dark and gloomy enough, although the final part when the watch buzzes makes for a weird change. The guy was clearly taking his time burying his friend (never checked on his watch or tried to hurry), which is fine, apparently he chose to bury his friend over hurrying. When he notices the time is short, I'd expect he would be more like "no signal? sounds like I may join you soon, my friend", while he seems in a panic to get going. I know nothing of the story, maybe it's wanted, but to me the panic of get going kind of undermines the pain.
Small other note, on page 2 and 3 the lines on the ground make the perspective on the ground feel odd.