Looking for solutions on how to stop manga from turning yellow? Well, check out here the easiest solutions to keep your manga away from turning yellow.
You take your old manga books from your stash and when you open them you’re surprised by the color of your manga pages. They’ve turned into a warm yellowish hue and you immediately start to think that you were ripped off by the seller but that’s not the case.
Any manga owner would tell you how they were surprised by the fact that their manga books turned yellow over time.
As someone who has a huge manga reserve, I was bewildered to see my manga books having yellow-colored pages when I opened them after several months. I figured my friends experienced the same issue hence I decided to research what causes yellowing in the manga.
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Below I’ve discussed what causes manga to turn yellow and preventive methods you can follow to how to stop manga from turning yellow.
Page Contents
How To Stop Manga From Turning Yellow
What Causes Manga To Turn Yellow?
Let’s begin by knowing the reasons behind manga pages turning yellow. It took me a while to learn that it was just scientific reasons rather than my manga store owner selling me fraudulent manga copies.
Manga or any books are made with paper and we know paper is made out of wood. Basically, wood consists of elements like cellulose and lignin. Now cellulose is a colorless component and it’s what most reflects light on paper which makes paper have a white color. Meanwhile, lignin is a polymer component that makes the wood stronger, and stiffer and which binds the cellulose together.
While cellulose is a colorless substance, lignin is a dark-colored element that gives color to paper. For instance, we’ve seen cardboard boxes and paper bags having a brown color and lignin is the reason for that.
Although paper has a white color when it’s newly made, cellulose and lignin can cause the paper to turn yellow over time due to oxidation. When manga books are exposed to sunlight and oxygen, lignin can cause yellowing in the papers eventually and it also changes how the paper reflects light as well.
In addition, lignin is more prevalent in cheap quality paper than premium quality paper. This is because good quality paper goes through a deep bleaching process which removes most of the lignin hence they take a longer time to turn yellow than dull paper.
Therefore a manga book turning yellow depends on the quality of paper used by the publisher. While most manga publishers use lower quality paper to reduce costs due to excessive publishing, manga books are more susceptible to turning yellow.
How Long Do Manga Pages Take To Turn Yellow?
Well, this solely depends on the manga publishers and what quality of paper they use to publish manga books. As we mentioned, cheap quality paper is prone to turning yellow much faster than higher-quality paper.
If manga publishers use high-quality paper to publish their manga books then it would probably take nearly 10 to 15 years for the manga books to turn yellow. Similarly, manga books that are printed with lower quality paper would only take up to 5 years for the paper to turn yellow.
However, the duration for the manga pages to turn yellow also depends on factors like humidity, air temperature, and oxygen levels. If you live in an area where it’s mostly sunny and the temperature is relatively high then your manga books are highly likely to turn yellow much quicker than predicted.
In this case, a manga book with premium quality paper would take less than 6 years and manga books with cheap paper would take less than a year to turn yellow.
In addition, if you take your manga tankobon to read at the park or beach regularly then you’ll be able to witness yellowing at a much faster pace.
How To Prevent Manga From Turning Yellow?
Prevention is better than cure hence let’s first look at the best and easy preventive measures we can take to ensure our manga books don’t turn yellow much faster.
- Keep Away From Sunlight
This is the first warning issued on any product we’ve seen in our lives. Sunlight is extremely powerful and contains UV rays that can damage the substances in the paper which as a result turns pages into yellow color.
Hence, ensure your manga books aren’t kept on a bookshelf or table that is close to a window or an area that’s exposed to sunlight.
- Keep Manga Books Under Moderate Temperature
Storing your manga books in places where it isn’t too hot or too cold can also prevent yellowing in pages. Keeping your manga books in areas where it’s too dry can cause pages to become brittle and avoid wet places as well as they can cause your manga books to grow mold.
You can identify the ideal place for you to store your manga books by using a thermometer to measure the temperature. The ideal temperature should be below 25° Celsius (77° Fahrenheit).
In addition, to control the humidity level in the air you can use an air humidifier or a dehumidifier. The ideal humidity level can be anywhere between 30% to 50%. Hence, you don’t have to worry about your manga books turning yellow much quicker.
- Maintain the same temperature always
Now that you know the ideal temperature and humidity levels to avoid yellowing in your manga it’s also best to ensure you maintain the same temperature levels throughout. You can do this by keeping your manga books in a room which has the same temperature throughout the year.
In addition, don’t forget to keep your manga books in place after you’ve taken them to read because a change in place can also mean a change in temperature and hence results in quicker yellowing.
- Do not read manga books under direct sunlight
This is one of the crucial steps most of us forget when reading manga books. It’s never okay to expose your manga books to direct sunlight hence avoid taking manga books to the beach or park.
If you’re someone who loves to read books in an outside environment then make sure you read your manga in a shady place that’s away from sunlight.
- Provide Enough Air Circulation For Your Manga Books
Don’t store your books in packed places where there’s little to no air. This can only be a detriment to your manga books.
When you place your books on the shelf make sure to leave a bit of space between each book to ensure a good amount of air circulates between them. This will ensure harmful gases aren’t built up between the books and pages.
- Use UV Filters
Although you keep your books away from the UV rays of sunlight, there might still be persistent UV rays in your room either due to your light bulb or whatnot. If you want to block UV rays from affecting your books then you can opt to buy a UV filter.
A UV filter absorbs the ultraviolet light and rays and can prevent your manga books from being damaged and turning yellow.
- Segregate Yellowed Manga or Books
If you have manga or any other books that have become victims of yellowing then make sure to keep them away from manga books that are in good condition.
This is because yellowed manga books would be emitting gasses or other substances which can spread to new manga books and cause them to turn yellow.
- Open your manga books regularly
Don’t neglect to care for your mangas after you’ve finished reading them. Open them from time to time to freshen them with air as pages tend to turn yellow faster when books are kept close for a long period.
Steps To Remove Yellowing From Manga
If you have manga books that have already turned yellow then there’s no point following the preventive measures discussed above. However, there are other ways you can try to take the yellowing off your manga books. It’s worth noting that these steps can be quite expensive and weary.
Besides, you can only follow one of these steps to remove yellowing and not all. Also, don’t go overboard when following any of these steps as it can further damage your manga books.
Use Sandpaper – This is the easiest and cheapest method you can follow to remove yellowing from manga books. When buying sandpaper choose 100-grit sandpaper that’s very fine. Use this to rub finely on yellow pages and you can get 320-grit sandpaper to smoothen the pages although this is optional.
Use Baking Soda – Wear latex gloves and disperse baking soda on pages that are affected by yellowing. Then soak a clean white cloth in hydrogen peroxide and drain excess liquid. Gently wipe on areas where yellowing is prevalent and let it dry completely before moving on to the next page.
However, this is the riskiest method to remove yellowing because the process involves chemicals like hydrogen peroxide and bicarbonate soda which can further damage your books.
Therefore pay heed to the ramifications and carefully consider them before trying any of these methods. You could still buy a new manga book using the amount of money you spend on using these methods.
How To Stop Manga From Turning Yellowing: FAQs
Why do manga books turn yellow?
Books are made out of paper that’s made out of wood. Wood contains components like cellulose and lignin. Cellulose is a colorless component that is a factor that helps light to reflect on paper and lignin is a polymer that binds the cellulose and other components together on the paper.
These components are heavily prone to oxidization hence when manga books are exposed to sunlight or high humidity levels, yellowing can occur on pages.
How to prevent manga from turning yellow?
There are several methods that can either prevent or delay the process of yellowing in manga books. Some of the easy methods are as follows:
– Keep manga books away from direct sunlight.
– Don’t take your manga books to places like parks and beaches where the sunlight is too intense.
– Store the manga books under moderate temperatures away from wet and hot places.
– Place your books by leaving enough gaps in between them to ensure there’s air circulation.
– Separate mangas with yellow pages from new manga books.
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