TL;DR From an anglophone POV, Traditional Chinese is indeed a backward language!
[Pages 16 {right} – 17 {left} of the Chinese version of Holes, by Louis Sachar, translated by my colleague 趙永芬】
Works of fiction and newspapers in traditional Chinese characters (Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau) are usually printed in vertical columns from right to left, which amounts to “backwards” for western readers.
Except for new editions of ancient works, books in simplified characters published in the PRC are generally “forwards”: horizontal lines reading left to right and top to bottom, like western books.
Books in Japanese are also printed “backwards”.
[Bibles and Qur’an]
Publications in Hebrew and Arabic read right to left, so the last page from an anglophone POV is actually the first page. These languages can be considered “backward” as well.