@Vongola_Boss_XI:
Has there been a physical release of any kind for any of the series you mentioned?
The US got physical releases of the full color Dragon Ball chapters for the Saiyan arc and Freeza arc. Sadly, they never released the Cell or Buu arcs. They didn't design the covers very well I think, so it's easy to see why they ddin't sell well.
I don't expect it, but I'd love a high quality full color physical release in English. I'd buy even Japanese volumes if they were released physically though.
Are they worried it would take away sales from the regular volumes? I think I still prefer the pen and ink chapters, but it's cool to read the color ones as well.
All of Dragon Ball, from the very beginning to the end of Z, had a physical release in Japan between 2013 and 2016, but as far I can see it's the only series to get that treatment. Maybe Dragon Ball didn't do so well. Could have been the fairly uninspiring covers, could be that the colour release was only two volumes shorter than the Kanzenban release for not that much of a price difference and didn't come across as a good investment for anyone who already owned the series. Maybe the mainstream physical bookbuying audience over there just wasn't ready to move away from the tradition of black and white manga yet.
I'm right there with you on a physical purchase if it ever did happen. English preferable, but I'd take what I can get just to have the art in a better quality than what the ebook sites offer.
I think the concern is actually the other way around. People aren't going to buy them because they already have the black and white volumes. I assume one of the reasons even the digital release is so far behind is to avoid people thinking "I just bought this" when they see it come up. It has to sit long enough to suck people in for a revisit. That exact thing happened to me with the English Dragon Ball colour volumes, actually. I'd just got my hands on the VizBig collection when they started coming out, and I couldn't justify diving straight back for another release that was going to be more volumes and more expensive per volume than what I'd just picked up. If they reprinted the volumes they did and made a commitment to doing the rest in a reasonable timeframe I'd probably jump on board now, but I guess it's a bit late for that.
My thinking is that any colour rerelease of anything that wants to succeed will probably need an omnibus or box set format and either some really good marketing or an easy hype tool like a revised translation, but I'm not any kind of professional marketing person or anything, and I haven't seen any figures for how the English or Japanese release of Dragon Ball actually did, so who knows.