English majors, in some ways, make awful proofreaders for manga. Don’t get me wrong. The proofreader must know the rules of grammar. Only then can he break them intelligently.
The main reason is that much of manga is carried out in dialog. That’s what the speech bubbles in just about every frame are — speech. Listen to the people around you talk. Rarely does anyone speak following proper grammar rules. When we speak, we will drop the subject or leave off a verb. We use contractions and words that ain’t words. The only time I envision proper grammar in speech is when the high-brow talk, like Jeeves, the butler.
The other point is that manga are comics and cartoons. There are going to be expressions and punctuation that are not found in traditional English. When a person is in love, the mangaka will often end the sentence with a heart (♥). They’ll use a music note (♪) when the character is talking in a sing-song voice. And then, there is the famous interrobang (!?, ?!) and multiples (!!!!!!, ??????). All of these can be found in manga and groups will have to decide what to do with them. Since most of us keep them in, in some form, it makes for a bending of strict grammar rules. I’ll talk about punctuation more in another post. For now, happy PRing.
守宮