Do You Prefer Reading The Manga In Color Or BW?

[ATA]

BW = Black and White

Howdy,

I been reading up on Dragon Ball a lot lately. I came across a few videos that uses the full color manga and I always enjoy seeing Super color pages be posted on Twitter so see the differences between manga colors and anime colors. I'm just wondering, do you guys prefer reading Dragon Ball and DBS in color or BW? I prefer BW honestly. I think sometimes color make the art look weird. I can't describe it, perhaps my eyes used to BW manga so seeing it in color makes it look different even though the artwork is the same. I do like the colored covers though. The limited color pages are also cool at times.

[pepd]

For me is: Colored DB special pages > B&W = Digitally Colored DB >> Digitally Colored DBS. Color is a nice addition, but the lineal drawing with some black has it's charm and is easy to read. The special colored pages with its simpler and selective coloring I think has the best of both. DBS's shadowing, auras and palette are a real turn off.

[jjgp1112]

The full color manga is kind of a weird...uncanny valley for lack of a better term? I prefer black and white, just to see Akira Toriyamas sometimes strange and inconsistent color choices

[Kaboom]

I like the Full-Color edition as a fun novelty (still need to get around to collecting the English Freeza-arc volumes), but I prefer the original mostly black-and-white version.

I eagerly await the day when Viz finally gives the series its due with a fancy new hardcover release that contains ALL the color pages...

[StevenPiccolo]

I haven't seen too many colored pages of this manga specifically, but I think the shift might be weird since the BW is super simple and easy for your eyes to digest all the information on the page. The original manga doesn't have complicated tones or shading, so seeing it shaded with all the busy colored backgrounds, debris, objects can detract from the experience. I think the backgrounds usually have nice colors at least, it's the character's colors not really reacting to the environment around them, but I suppose it would save a lot of time to keep it all more uniform.

The special color chapters are neat though.

[sangofe]

I like them both.

[The Accountant]

For me, reading in color makes whatever is going on a little easier to understand. Especially with manga where everything is so cluttered or detailed.

However, Akira Toriyama is very good with balancing art with negative space. So I often default to B&W. Though, the color is a welcome edition.

[TheGreatness25]

I would love to read the anga, but I only have the Japanese colored manga, which... I can't read. I can't bring myself to buy the Viz full color manga because it's incomplete. And while I would be extremely tempted to buy an incomplete version of the anime (like the Level sets), I don't have that pull for the manga... Or, do I? Because I bought the Japanese version lol

I would find it odd to read a portion of the story in color, but not even the majority of it. I have the Viz/Shonen Jump subscription and good is on my favorites list, but I haven't read it yet. I just like to flip through the Japanese colored manga to look at the pictures. Plus, since Super is in black and white, I stick to black and white.

So, black and white for me.

[Robo4900]

If I had the choice, I would read it as it was originally published in Japan in Jump and the Kanzenban volumes; all the originally black and white chapters in black and white, all the partial colour chapters in partial colour, and all the full colour chapters in full colour. Unfortunately, there is no English release like this.

Failing that, if I had the choice, I'd go with the complete full colour manga. Unfortunately Viz cancelled the Full Colours.

So, I'm left with sticking to purely black and white, which is not so bad honestly. The colour pages greyscale just fine, and most of the manga was black and white anyway. So I'm happy with that.

Yes, in theory, I could spring for the VizBigs and get some of the original colour pages, some greyscaled, but for twice the price of the normal 3-in-1s, less than half of the original colour just isn't worth it in my book. Plus the 3-in-1s are a lovely form-factor; not too hungry for shelf space, nice spine art, I like that the spine text is just "Dragonball", and the value simply can't be beaten without going digital. (And even then, your only option is the Shounen Jump subscription, which is pretty brilliant since it's $2 for a month of unlimited reading!)

[nineko]

Aside from the physical volumes (black and white in Italian), I mostly use the Shonen Jump app on my phone these days, so I'm stuck with black and white for the most part, there are some chapters in full color but not many of them.

[Majin Man 101]

One of the biggest reasons I don’t read manga is because it’s not in color. Don’t get me wrong, I love black and white movies and tv shows just fine, and if that’s how they were shot I don’t have a problem with watching it in black and white. But for cartoons in particular, color just breathes life into the artwork and makes everything pop off the page/screen.

A couple of years ago, I collected the full color Dragon Ball manga from Japan and I must say that after viewing those, there is no going back to reading the black and white manga for me. Also, while the full color Dragon Ball Super manga isn’t as beautiful as the full color original manga, it is still nice.

Really hoping VIZ puts out an uncensored hardbook full color version one day. Also with a new translation please.

[MCDaveG]

Black and white... I am purist in a sense and BW manga plus the colored pages are basically how Toriyama drew it originally.
Somehow, the japanese manga has an excotic appeal to me, of being basically a cross between old newspaper strips (and even modern ones, continuing this tradition) and caligraphy in a sense and also, in comparison to western comic books with an army of pencilers, inkers, colorists and letterists + guy who writes the script, as it is rarely the same person doing story and art.
I think that the Japanese custom of an writer/artist plus an assistant is crazy and no wonder that Toriyama basically burnt out doing a weekly series or Masami Kurumada being left with chronic pain in his hands.

The full colored manga is a nice afterthought, but I think that the original art gets lost a bit in it and I love Toriyama's speed lines and distortions in just the simple form. The full colored version seems like loosing an impact in the fight scenes.

Also, Toriyama had many "odd choices" for colors, as we are used to the anime, so looking back on his colored art is sometimes unusual, but I really love that as being the original. The full color manga basically takes the color scheme from anime.

[Wrigglything]

Personally, I prefer the colour somewhat even though I know full well it can be seen as sacrilege. Like, granted, the original manga can be easy to understand just through black and white, so if I were forced to read it black and white, I'd probably just go ahead and have a good time with it still. His artwork is shockingly clean in spite of its age.

Although, come Super, and even though I could get the basics down fine in black and white, I personally would like to hunt down coloured copies as Super's use of coloured forms make identifying any form Goku or Vegeta uses to be less confusing. Of course, in fairness to Toyotaro, he has to draw, panel, ink, etc., all of that in a month by his lonesome, in a series that uses colours to differentiate between one another, so I at least sympathise with him in that department. Still, it'd be awesome if there is an official English colour release. Or at least a foreign language one, just to prove there is demand.

[MCDaveG]

Personally, I prefer the colour somewhat even though I know full well it can be seen as sacrilege. Like, granted, the original manga can be easy to understand just through black and white, so if I were forced to read it black and white, I'd probably just go ahead and have a good time with it still. His artwork is shockingly clean in spite of its age.

Although, come Super, and even though I could get the basics down fine in black and white, I personally would like to hunt down coloured copies as Super's use of coloured forms make identifying any form Goku or Vegeta uses to be less confusing. Of course, in fairness to Toyotaro, he has to draw, panel, ink, etc., all of that in a month by his lonesome, in a series that uses colours to differentiate between one another, so I at least sympathise with him in that department. Still, it'd be awesome if there is an official English colour release. Or at least a foreign language one, just to prove there is demand.

You are right in that regard, that the new re-colored forms translate really bad into the manga in classic BW format.
I had real trouble in the Granolah arc and the final fight, to follow if Goku is SSJ God or Ultra Instinct and with Vegeta it is even worse.
The use of gradient for these forms is really confusing, maybe even a reason for Freeza to go black

One more reason why I love the original SSJ concept, with basically white hair and being visually striking compared to the Ice Cream Boys from Super. How to distinguish Goku Black SSJ Rose from SSJ Blue? You can't, it has to be explained through exposition, which I think is dumb. Goku in Namek Arc in manga also doesn't say "How do you like my new form? Isn't my blonde hair beautiful?"

Toriyama is genius in visual designs, but when you make concepts specifically for anime, well, it is completely different from doing them for black and white format obviously and I wonder, if Super was actually a manga sequel first, if we've got different solutions for new SSJ forms, except for basic God, as they are basically just re-colors.

[Koitsukai]

I prefer BW. For the coloured version, I prefer the anime, the colours flow much better there of course. Toriyama's style is also great for BW, other mangakas' aren't, and the pages can be a mess that only colour can explain, but Tori pulls off BW incredibly.

I do like reading coloured Dragonball, but I'd take BW anyday. Some coloured panels look too much like the CGI green screen they use in those boring Marvel movies, and that takes me away from the supposed location. Sometimes, I feel they are in a movie studio shooting a scene, instead of in a wasteland.

[The Time Traveller]

I like both, I love the effort put into the Full Color version, but I love the extra punch from some darker things in the manga just being filled in as black, like Vegeta's battle suit.

[Saiya6Cit]

I like both and I don't think that by having color it would really make the manga any different on plot, obviously, it is just visuals.

but honestly I have not read the manga in color and i don't know how to get it exactly, I came back to this fandom in 2020 but it was mainly for the creation of fanarts (with the ilusion of getting comissions)

I know some things are forbidden to post here but if some kind soul would send the URL to me on a private message or note on my site, I woudl appreciate it a lot.