It is always interesting to me how many people are put off by manga because it’s in black and white. When I show people a copy of a manga, they will frown once they realize that all (or most as I will get to later) of the art is monochromatic. After I explain to them that the vast majority of manga is in black and white, they will quite often ask “Why don’t the artists colour their manga?”
While there are a variety of reasons to cover, one of the most noteworthy is that of workload. In contrast to Western comics which often publish about 20-25 pages a month, most manga is released through manga magazines on a weekly, biweekly or monthly basis with weekly manga typically 20-25 pages long, biweekly manga 30-35 pages and monthly manga over 50 pages!
It is also worth noting that the Western artist is quite often not the one who colours their work. Instead the task falls to a colourist whose job is to colour the black and white artwork sent over by the artist. On occasion, a manga chapter might have a few colour pages to open up with and the colouring is quite often done by the mangaka themselves (although they might have a little help from their assistants). If mangaka had to colour in all of their art, it is extremely likely that there would a drop in the amount of pages in monthly manga, not to mention that it would be next to impossible for weekly manga to be released.
Another prominent reason why more manga are not coloured are the costs related to publishing. I mentioned before how manga is typically released in manga magazines but what I did not mention is how cheap many of these magazines are. I can remember being surprised when I got a copy of Weekly Shonen Jump and seeing the price tag of ¥250. “This magazine is 400 pages. How is it this cheap?!” I thought.
It is notable that the paper quality of many of these manga magazines are quite poor with the majority of pages using cheap recycled paper. You might get the odd higher quality paper in the magazine for colour pages and advertisements but the expectation is that, if you’re looking for higher quality paper, you would pick up the tankoban for any series that you follow.
If these magazines were in full-colour, many of the costs would increase and the magazines would probably end up with much less content as well. It would be likely that the price for buying these magazines would increase and they may see sales plummet. That is not to say that a future where we see more manga in colour is impossible, the rise of manga published digitally may remove some hurdles but it is still unlikely that manga will abandon black and white anytime soon.
I’m personally fine with manga being nearly exclusively black and white but, as always, I’m eager to hear your thoughts on the topic. Do you prefer manga when it is coloured or do you like the monochromatic style? Do you think manga should eventually adopt colour en masse (particularly with the rise of digital publishing) or do you think it should stick to its roots?
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk and amazon.com for all of your needs!