This snipper in my ~/.profile colorizes man pages for like ten years already:

  #   Colorify man (changes default $MANPAGER (less) settings)
  export LESS_TERMCAP_mb='^[[01;31m'
  export LESS_TERMCAP_md='^[[01;31m'
  export LESS_TERMCAP_me='^[[0m'
  export LESS_TERMCAP_se='^[[0m'
  export LESS_TERMCAP_so='^[[01;44;33m'
  export LESS_TERMCAP_ue='^[[0m'
  export LESS_TERMCAP_us='^[[01;32m'