Hmm, actually, my (Korean) experience is that East Asian typesetting compensates by adding extra space between lines. Because each character fills a square blo

Hmm, actually, my (Korean) experience is that East Asian typesetting compensates by adding extra space between lines. Because each character fills a square block, if you pack characters as close as possible, a paragraph becomes a rectangular array of dense squares, which is tiring to the eyes. Adding extra space between lines makes it much easier to read. With Latin alphabets, characters have irregular shapes, so you will have enough "holes" between successive lines, which helps the reader follow the current line.