Would you prefer it if manga were in full color?

[Zenpai]

Title says it all.

 

Personally, I would. It's not that it looks positively awful in monochrome, but color adds so much to the artwork. I like both manga and Western comics, and although I tend to like the stories in manga more, I can't help but admire the care put onto the artwork in comics. Without color, manga just looks cheap and rushed.* And I positively hate seeing the few color pages printed in grayscale, it looks downright awful.

 

I know mangaka are extremely short on time to produce their chapters, so coloring them on a week-to-week basis would probably be unfeasible, but nothing would prevent publishers from giving the finished chapters to a separate coloring team and then putting out the collected editions already colored from the get-go. Sure, it would make them more expensive, but they could also sell them alongside the monochrome version to those shorter on cash or who just don't care about manga all that much.

 

Shuueisha now has a new Digital Colored Comics line, where they color some of their most popular manga and make them available through a number of e-book services. I took a peek at some of them and they look positively gorgeous. It makes it all the harder to go back to regular monochrome manga. Too bad they're (nearly) all digital only, color is at its best on print.

 

Of all of Shuueisha's manga, Dragon Ball was the luckiest: the "Z"-portion of the story (chapter 195 onwards) got a print color edition - and it looks stunning. It's too bad the first 194 chapters are digital-only, but I guess we should be glad we got this many in print form. And in an unprecedented move for a Western publisher, Viz went the extra mile when localizing this edition and bumped up the size - a lot, bringing the manga back to the size it had when it was originally published in Jump, back in the 80s and 90s. To see Toriyama-sensei's masterpiece fully and beautifully colored on an edition this big (basically bridging the quality gap between manga and comics) is like heaven on Earth for a fan of both Dragon Ball and just comics in general. Viz has been slowly putting them out and recently licensed the Freeza arc, hope they can make it all the way to the end of the manga.

 

What about you guys? Would you also rather manga be in full color? Or are you happy with monochrome?

 

 

* (Yes, I know manga's really is supposed to be a cheap hobby and mangaka usually only have a week to finish an entire 18-page chapter).

[ZeroXOF]

Nah, it's too late now. It adds a certain little charm knowing that I can visualize my own colour scheme for the character. I would however, buy the old mangas from the 70s to 00s  in colour. 

Edited August 21, 2015 by ZeroXOF

[Cobby]

No. Cos then it'd be more expensive than it already is.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Max

[StrickenBiged]

I would. I know Manga is a style all its own and is produced on a much tighter timescale, but compare Manga art to the stuff coming out of Marvel, for example, and there are worlds of difference. 

 

Mostly, though, I read for the stories.

 

I do find it weird when I watch an anime later though and I'm like, "Oh, that character has red hair... I always imagined it as brown..."

[slash]

I like the monochrome, it's just easier on the eyes for longer reading sessions. Books are just black text and white paper, so I think it stems from that. That said, I always enjoy the occasional color pages in mangas, they're also so nice. 

[ZeroXOF]

I would. I know Manga is a style all its own and is produced on a much tighter timescale, but compare Manga art to the stuff coming out of Marvel, for example, and there are worlds of difference. 

 

Mostly, though, I read for the stories.

 

I do find it weird when I watch an anime later though and I'm like, "Oh, that character has red hair... I always imagined it as brown..."

 

I agree mostly but I don't think we can compare some of the manga houses to Marvel, one of the biggest comics houses on the planet. 

[Dantes_994]

I would, it would be awesome. But I think it's a lot more expensive.

[StrickenBiged]

I agree mostly but I don't think we can compare some of the manga houses to Marvel, one of the biggest comics houses on the planet. 

 

I'm not saying that I expect them to reach the same standards, but that in an ideal world the manga would be coloured. I wouldn't want them to copy Marvel's style or anything. 

 

Obviously practical difficulties like timescales and cost get in the way of this. But if these things weren't an issue, hell yeah I'd like all the art to be as top quality as possible.

[damon8r351]

I prefer maynga in black and white.

 

"Uh... excuse me. It's pronounced 'mahn-guh', thank you!"

 

I know. I say it that way to irritate otakus.

[Satoshi Ookami]

This literally asks.

"Would you prefer weekly series to run monthly?"

And the answer to both is no. Manga has its magic because it's monochrome.

 

 

Manhwa uses color and... I don't like manhwa so no, I wouldn't want colored manga.

I would say it only fits doujins. Doujins are suitable colored, manga isn't.

 

 

 

I prefer maynga in black and white.

 

"Uh... excuse me. It's pronounced 'mahn-guh', thank you!"

 

I know. I say it that way to irritate otakus.

[damon8r351]

This literally asks.

"Would you prefer weekly series to run monthly?"

And the answer to both is no. Manga has its magic because it's monochrome.

 

 

Manhwa uses color and... I don't like manhwa so no, I wouldn't want colored manga.

I would say it only fits doujins. Doujins are suitable colored, manga isn't.

 

 

 

 

When I mispronounce the word "manga", it irritates my wife and she'll stop whatever she's doing to correct me. So naturally I do it every chance I get.

[Satoshi Ookami]

When I mispronounce the word "manga", it irritates my wife and she'll stop whatever she's doing to correct me. So naturally I do it every chance I get.

Oh, I see.

Though, it's not like anyone in the west could pronounce is 100% correctly.

[Xugashi]

While I enjoy the great artwork in itself in a manga, color brings life to it! It also helps distinguish certain things like the official colors for, well, everything!

[Zenpai]

This literally asks.

"Would you prefer weekly series to run monthly?"

And the answer to both is no. Manga has its magic because it's monochrome.

 

As I said in the original post, "coloring them on a week-to-week basis would probably be unfeasible, but nothing would prevent publishers from giving the finished chapters to a separate coloring team and then putting out the collected editions already colored from the get-go". When I made the question, I had the tankoubon in mind. The weekly serialization is too ephemeral, the collected editions are the ones that truly last.

 

And, no, the magic of manga does not reside in its monochrome-y-ness, its resides in its characters, its worlds and its stories. The artwork used to convey them is also generally very good and adding color would only make all of those factors more appealing to the eye without taking anything away.

Edited August 21, 2015 by jrdemr

[zorry777]

Would love it but it takes way too long to have a full color for one chapter

Wouldn't mind it for one shots or short series

[Happy]

In most cases yes. I've read a good number of fan-made colorized manga and i have always enjoyed them more than the original so far. There's probably some instances where the monochrome does add to the artstyle but those are exceptions.