The lack of manga with fully coloured artwork

N

Neferpitou

Stand User
I can clealy see why when a manga is first serialized in anthology and later put into book releases are in black and white to keep cost down and to save time.

But once a popular series has been finished for long time I don't see why they don't re-release with full coloured artwork. I must admit not all manga deserve that kind of treatment but a title like Dragon ball which is either 1st or 2nd best selling manga series. The small amount of existing coloured page were really nice and made it a bit of shame that the rest artwork couldn't follow suit.

It would be massive undertaking but I could see it selling well enough in japan to make it worthwhile, unless the japanese got something really against coloured artwork?
 
Dave said:
It would be massive undertaking but I could see it selling well enough in japan to make it worthwhile, unless the japanese got something really against coloured artwork?
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Established trends I guess, perhaps they assume that's what anime is for. Full colour manga is a rarity - in fact the only one I've read is Ghost in the Shell and that had black and white sections here and there. I can see why mangaka don't do it, they favour scope over colouring. The lack of it cuts their work load and allows them to do more story in a shorter time.

Interestingly enough I remember hearing something ages ago about a project to colour all of Tezuka's manga, but I haven't heard anything on it since.
 
Marvel released Akira coloured. It's close to impossible to get hold of it now, unless you have a big bag of cash.

There is a few books that have coloured stories, such as the Ah my goddess colour book released by Dark Horse.

Movie books from Ghibli are coloured as well, but they are basically stills from the movie. Adn that's what I can recall from the top of my head.

The simple answer why manga is not initially in colour is a simple "it would be expensive". I dare say that dozens of series are started every year, but only a few selected ones survive.

Why they don't colour it for re-releases and such? My theory goes along the lines of "why should we bother if fans are buying it anyway?"
 
Also, if you look at western comics, the colouring is often done by a third person (after the writer and artist), so that means paying another person (higher costs) and also it taking longer to complete a chapter (more time).

Japanese fans are happy with the traditional black & white style at the price its at, so why rock the boat?
 
King Jimmeh said:
Also, if you look at western comics, the colouring is often done by a third person (after the writer and artist), so that means paying another person (higher costs) and also it taking longer to complete a chapter (more time).

Japanese fans are happy with the traditional black & white style at the price its at, so why rock the boat?
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How much is a Japanese takobon agian

Like 400 yen

so exchange rate would be £2 ish
 
Isn't Dragonball coloured in the VIZBig/Wideban releases? I imagine it is in the VIZ aizoban release as well. Just the original coloured pages, not all of it.
 
I think people are missing the point I am trying to make. I am arguing for big selling ( 1million+ a book) manga titles which have already finish there run years ago to be released in a full colour format.

There not many title which would fulfill it but titles like dragon ball, Slam Dunk, Rurouni Kenshin or Yu Yu Hakusho I would give for example.

Jayme said:
Isn't Dragonball coloured in the VIZBig/Wideban releases? I imagine it is in the VIZ aizoban release as well. Just the original coloured pages, not all of it.
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Most of original colour pages are included but sadly not all, it shame they could not added another couple dollars to the price so that all of them could be included.
 
I can think of two possible reasons why that doesn't happen.

They would be considerably more expensive to produce, meaning they would be considerably more expensive to buy. Would those who own the original versions be prepared to double-dip? Would new fans choose the expensive colour edition over the cheaper black & white?

Or maybe Japan prefers black & white comics.
 
Dave said:
I think people are missing the point I am trying to make. I am arguing for big selling ( 1million+ a book) manga titles which have already finish there run years ago to be released in a full colour format.
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Few people want them and costs to have a lot of pages coloured are likely the contributing factors to why such things don't happen. Plus wouldn't people complain about it "not being in its original form", like with dubbed anime :lol:
 
King Jimmeh said:
Dave said:
I think people are missing the point I am trying to make. I am arguing for big selling ( 1million+ a book) manga titles which have already finish there run years ago to be released in a full colour format.
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Few people want them and costs to have a lot of pages coloured are likely the contributing factors to why such things don't happen. Plus wouldn't people complain about it "not being in its original form", like with dubbed anime :lol:
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QFT

I forgot to mentioned, that the coloured Akira had it's art "adapted" before they started colouring.

It looked really nice, but still, it's not the original work. If authors were to worry about colouring from the start, well then, it would be a compelte different matter.
 
Full colour Dragon Ball or Slam Dunk, yes please, I'd happily re-buy both of those at a premium if they were coloured in nicely. I don't ever see it happening though and if it did it would probably be a US production to milk DB or Kenshin further. The Japanese seem happy with their art books and having the anime and various toys for their dose of characters in colour.
 
King Jimmeh said:
Dave said:
I think people are missing the point I am trying to make. I am arguing for big selling ( 1million+ a book) manga titles which have already finish there run years ago to be released in a full colour format.
Click to expand...

Few people want them and costs to have a lot of pages coloured are likely the contributing factors to why such things don't happen. Plus wouldn't people complain about it "not being in its original form", like with dubbed anime :lol:
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Well if only 1 in 20 japanese readers who brought the orignal dragon ball manga also brought a coloured in version as well it would equal an average of 175,000 sales per book. Also take into account oversea sales of colour version would make aswell.

It wouldn't cost that much to do as the extra cost would to hire some one to colour the artwork in. They would not exactly be that well paid either as the unknown in anime/manga industry are never that well paid. The price of the book would increase but they manga are already that low in price that final price wouldn't be too bad.

There would be no reason for anyone to complain about "not being in its original form" as it been already out for ages in original black/white form for ages.

Unless anyone could mention a case when a colourisation in japan flopped (the colourisation seem to be manga being released in the USA), I guess it never been tried out.
 
Dave said:
There not many title which would fulfill it but titles like dragon ball, Slam Dunk, Rurouni Kenshin or Yu Yu Hakusho I would give for example.
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I think if say, the YYH artist suddenly stopped working on HxH long term to colour all of YYH, there may be riots in the streets. He's pretty slow sometimes just working on his serialised stuff ;)

Given that a lot of artists take on a lot of creative control of their works it may be this that is the problem. Even artists not currently working on manga might be busy full time on other projects such as commissioned character designs, planning etc and they just don't see the advantage to taking the time to colour or having an assistant almost wholly responsible for colouring their precious work.

Perhaps now computers are much easier to use we'll see some manga artists in future, long past their active careers, do just as you say and try going back and perfecting their older stuff when they have the time. There are some artists who do seem very adept with colour (Toriyama from your list in particular has clearly mastered the technique) who could do a decent job. Then there are artists such as Miwa Ueda (Peach Girl) whose work looks far better to me in monochrome. The occasional coloured panel used in Blade of the Immortal (usually on the back covers) also look pretty bad to me compared to the subtle pencil work of the source images. The proper paintings (i.e. the front covers) are gorgeous though.

R
 
To anyone following it,the next few chapters of Soul Eater are appaerntly in full colour,hence the long wait.It'll be interesting to see what happens when that set gets released in collected form over here in about 2-3 years.I'm pretty sure that the wait,as others have stated,is the majour factor.Authors want their work to come out when desire for it is at its peak,not when the fanbase is complaining that the latest chapter is taking too long.They'd run the risk of putting some people off the series or turning them to others during the wait.
 
Rui said:
Dave said:
There not many title which would fulfill it but titles like dragon ball, Slam Dunk, Rurouni Kenshin or Yu Yu Hakusho I would give for example.
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I think if say, the YYH artist suddenly stopped working on HxH long term to colour all of YYH, there may be riots in the streets. He's pretty slow sometimes just working on his serialised stuff ;)

Given that a lot of artists take on a lot of creative control of their works it may be this that is the problem. Even artists not currently working on manga might be busy full time on other projects such as commissioned character designs, planning etc and they just don't see the advantage to taking the time to colour or having an assistant almost wholly responsible for colouring their precious work.

Perhaps now computers are much easier to use we'll see some manga artists in future, long past their active careers, do just as you say and try going back and perfecting their older stuff when they have the time. There are some artists who do seem very adept with colour (Toriyama from your list in particular has clearly mastered the technique) who could do a decent job. Then there are artists such as Miwa Ueda (Peach Girl) whose work looks far better to me in monochrome. The occasional coloured panel used in Blade of the Immortal (usually on the back covers) also look pretty bad to me compared to the subtle pencil work of the source images. The proper paintings (i.e. the front covers) are gorgeous though.

R
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Well it unlikely in the first place that main artist colours all his work when they got to contend with creating & writing the story, new character design and actual drawing the manga. They would likely colour the first of each new characters and then assistance would take over that job when required and the background as well.

I am advocating someone else colouring the manga using existing colour pages to base it off which would not hard to exactly match the existing coloured work. There not much worries about it being matching 100% as an example dragon ball manga colour pages often don't match. One page Goku clothing its orange next its red.

A new colour edition is meant to complement the existing version not replace them, it would make a nice piece merchandise compared normal items released, it would be actual worth owning for a change.
 
I can see what you mean, most manga, if not all, are generally done without colour, but to be honest, i dunno if it would be the same to read manga in a full colour format. The way i look at it is that for the authors, who not only draw but write the manga, it'd be a bit too much work to do in a oner. They do with their weekly chapters have maybe one or two colour pages, but thats it. The time they have to get them in stops them from getting more than that done i think. As for ones complete..i dunno...does it need it done? I mean its fine to read as is, does it really need the colour?
 
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