Despite the spread of horizontal writing in many aspects of daily life, Japanese literary print publishing continues to prefer the vertical format. This article looks at a few historical factors that may explain the persistence of verticality: the late arrival of Japanese keyboarding, the symbolic status of original manuscripts in modern Japanese publishing, and the cultural and aesthetic importance of hiraganas. Horizontal writing has gradually been introduced within the vertical, under Western influences, but horizontal writing, because it is in the minority, continues to produce a defamiliarizing effect, as we show through a few examples of contemporary Japanese novels printed horizontally.