I got an ARC of this book.

So I loved this book. I loved the art, I loved the story, I loved that things weren’t neatly tied up. There was a lot going on, but not a lot of it was perfectly solved.

There were two distinct art styles happening. There was the anime/fantasy sequences that were GORGEOUS. They were the prettiest parts of the book. Which makes sense, anime is often gorgeous and filled with pretty people. The day to day art wasn’t as pretty, but I liked it more. I loved that the hair line on Dan kept changing. It gave the appearance of messy, can’t be contained hair.

I loved how Dan’s gender was explored, but not full labeled. That was not the focus on the book, but it was an aspect. Dan very well may be trans and/or non-binary, but Dan is not at the point to announce that. That felt more realistic than forcing an identity label at this point. I loved there there were a few hints of romance between Dan and a few other characters. That this was not really addressed either. It allowed for a more slice of life feel. It was not their entire lives, but one year of them starting to come into their own.

I loved how there were hints of discussions about racism. I wish that it had gone a little bit harder on that, but I also appreciated that there was not an immediate lesson for the reader. I loved that Maya just dealt with it. There is not always the emotional bandwidth to address and protect against the attacks. Instead they can crawl under your skin and live inside of you. The way that it was handled gave a more human feeling instead of a more educational feeling to that plot line. It hit really close to my heart.

James’s plots were a bit harder for me. They were more focused on dealing with anxiety and pressure from stereotypes. His parents were not loving and helpful. Instead they were possibly the biggest bullies in his life. It took me a long time before I thought I was starting to see James. The ending focusing on James was really wonderful. It felt freeing and wonderful, but I was left with the anxiety of “what happens after?”. I am used to his type of parents so I know that his life will not be magically better now.

The friendship is wonderful. It is clear that James is not as big into anime as Maya is. Maya is clearly the most into it. They all support each other in their own lives, but they have this bonding through something that means so much to Maya. It is wonderful to see that friends, even when they aren’t super into the exact same things, can be so supportive and human at the same time. This is not to say that there were no rocks in their relationship. Instead it was more about how sometimes rocks happen and there is still life after.

Overall, I loved this book. I need more by Sallah!

There comes a moment in every young person's life where you've got to fly or fall. James, Maya, and Danny are finishing up their final year of high school. They've been friends for forever, but they're discovering that they don't really know each other. Each finds him or herself at a crisis point and has to decide to either go along with how things have always been or to make a decision to grow up and become someone.

This book found me at a time when I really needed a reminder that reinventing oneself isn't the end of the world. Prejudices, societal problems, and hard things will always be around, but I can still choose who I am and how to respond. I really enjoyed the watercolor art style, although I occasionally mistook Hana for James. It's a unique style that wouldn't work just anywhere, but it pairs really well with the uncertainty of the plot. People can be cruel, but if one reaches out, there are always communities who are willing to support and connect.

I'm not fond of the art style and not invested in the story so I decided to DNF it.

Many thanks to Oni Press Publication and to Netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is an excellent graphic novel focused on coming of game, and becoming your true self. The art is well done and adds the story. Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC>

Really interesting art style, fun and relatable as a once weeaboo myself. Took me back to eighth grade which is okay only in this situation

A nostalgic portrayal of three friends struggling with identity, roles, and the expectations of those around them. While never concretely stated—and how could it be? These years are so tumultuous—there are enough clues to infer what each of the three main characters are struggling with. James, who is Asian American, can’t live up to the expectations of his mother, who believes the only path toward a decent life is college. Danny, who seems to be coded as nonbinary/trans masculine, loses a masculine role in a play and must confront the roles other people assign to them. Maya struggles with being alienated by others for being a Black girl in the cosplay/anime community, and how participating in that culture others and fetishizes Japanese people—evidenced in a fight between her and James.

There are very complicated dynamics here, and while the story covers those issues in broad strokes on a smaller scale, I could see clear character arcs for the three main characters. The art style shifts throughout the story, sometimes following a dominant sketchy style, sometimes a classic anime style. The shifts between realism and fantasy made sense to me, and worked very well for James’s character. There were some points where I had to go back and re-read as some of the story was unclear. But overall I liked it! It’s as much a love letter to the anime and cosplay community as it is a critique of its problems.

The art style was something new for me than my usual graphic novels and it was nice to explore different kinds of art but the story didn't do it for me , it was shifting from one person to another and it was whole lot of mess with heavy unattended topics .
This had so much of wasted potential.

First of all thank you for netgalley in providing me with an arc.

This was a fast read and I can highly relate to all the characters. The development of each characters on how they survive their high school life and how they tackled problems in regards to friends, family and self. It was very deep in some aspect because it discuss stereotypes and racism. A black girl being a lolita is kinda not good to see, stereotyping an asian being smart and a sexually confused girl, these are some of which that is found in here.

The first pages seems to be a glance on the way someone who loves anime would think but as the story progress the sensitive topics surfaces.

I like how each characters would find themselves at the end. Teenage years can be confusing because our decisions are mostly affected by either our family or the society.

The story is not all about fun and making costumes. It is about finding ourselves and making decisions that would make us happy instead of following what we are told to do. The art style is kinda new to me because I read mostly mangas and this is the second time I read a graphic novel but overall it was a great read.

Took a while to get into this one. It's hard to tell if it's told in a linear way. I think this is really only for existing fans of anime, people who already know the problems with racial portrayals and cultural appropriation. This book doesn't provide any suggestions for how to fix those things; it just points out that they're there.

I got into graphic novels this year and unfortunately, this one falls into the handful of ones that I didn't enjoy. I very nearly DNF'd it about 60% through and I wish I had. Definitely will not be recommending this.

I desperately wanted to enjoy this as an anime-loving POC. But this graphic novel was so disappointing. There were many issues that were glossed over (such as racism, homophobia and sexual identity) and other issues that were presented as non-issues, like the main characters basically mocking the bi-racial character for not knowing much about 'Japanese culture' when the only thing they know about Japan is anime. There were many opportunities where the authors could have delved deeper into these issues, had a discussion or even shown how the characters were affected by such issues.

Additionally, the art style just wasn't for me. It just seemed messy and a bit rushed.

Now onto the enjoyable part!

It was a light and cute story with a focus on 3 highschooler's love of anime and their uncertain futures. I enjoyed the high school drama for the nostalgia.

I can't say that I'd read this again, check out a sequel or recommend it though.

Weeaboo highlights some important, relevant issues, but overall felt rather flat.
I think that this is just a 'wasn't for me read' that other people might enjoy.

3.5/5

I am finding it hard to rate 'Weeaboo' because there was so much going on in it. The style changes from time to time and we go in and out of a(nother) fantasy world. It's an ambitious piece of work where I appreciate the ambition but cannot fully appreciate the execution. I didn't enjoy reading it as much as I wanted to. However, I did like how the story handled queerness, race, and obsession with a different popular culture.

I enjoyed many parts of this book, though I suspect primarily from a place of nostalgia. I was entering the online anime scene around the same time as the author (early/mid 2000s) and a lot of the scenes and themes instantly took me back to that time; the niche online blog (remember when those were a thing?), and even the somewhat rough art style of the book overall. That said, I felt the storyline was a bit lacking in both message and depth. I finished the book a bit unsure of what the author intended when writing it. The storyline that explored the challenges that POC experience in the anime/lolita scene had so much potential, but wasn't expanded on in any meaningful way unfortunately.

Pub date : 17th November

I hate it when I don't like a book , specially if it's a graphic novel , but this book just wasn't it or maybe it wasn't for me .
The style was totally new for me but it didn't bother me that much but it was the cringe dialogues and the missed chances that did , weeaboo had such a great opportunity to talk about the racism, fetishism and appropriation that resolves around Japanese or Asian pop culture as well whole but it was totally left behind , the character made zero to no development and I didn't feel the connection with anyone , they just didn't matter to me which makes me just so sad ,
I mean I don't know the whole book was just a mixture of important topics like family and peer pressure , parental abandonment, sexuality which were never discussed .

Thank you oni press and netgalley for providing me the arc for this book.

Thank you to Oni Press and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Weeaboo by Alissa M. Sallah is a great graphic novel about fan culture that will appeal to fans of Svetlana Chmakova's Dramacon. Weeaboo, by the way, is a normally pejorative but sometimes neutral word that refers to Americans who are obsessed with Japanese culture. The story revolves around a group of three friends who are preparing to go to a big anime convention. The heroine is Maya, a girl of color, who is an anime romance fanatic and has nicknamed herself "Hime," or "princess" in Japanese. She loves dressing up in Japanese-style frilly dresses and inserting Japanese words into her everyday speech. Her friend James is a dark and brooding loner who is often bullied by his classmates. The last member of their trio Dan is a girl, but Maya sees her with the visuals of a charming prince. The trio decide to cosplay, or in Dan's case, cross-play as the main characters in one of Maya's favorite animes. But as the day gets closer, the friends' diverging interests and personal issues cause them to grow apart...

Overall, Weeaboo is a nice, light-hearted graphic novel that touches on some dark and heavy topics, such as racism, bullying, gender nonconformity, and relationships. It will appeal to anime and manga fans everywhere. One highlight of this book is the art. If you look at the cover, you might think that the main characters are drawn pretty poorly. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the many art styles that the artist was able to emulate - from pencil manga drawings in a notebook to a fiction anime on TV with English subtitles. I should warn you that if you are not a fan of anime or manga, you will probably not enjoy this manga. There are a lot of references that you probably wouldn't understand. Nevertheless, if you are an otaku, then you will enjoy this book, and I highly recommend that you check it out when it comes out in November!

I really liked the story and the character. Sometimes it was a bit messy, but it was still a pretty good teen story. But what really bothered me was the art style, it wasn't really for me. But yeah a good story and friendship, with good topics.
Also, the friend group is fans of anime, just like a lot of us here I guess.

Ok, I’m going to be honest here and say this was a really weird graphic novel.
For starters I deeply disliked the art, the characters were so poorly done it pained me to continue to read it, James has a japanese heritage but I could barely notice, maybe people more accustomed with this art style will enjoy it but I wasn’t one of them.

The story too was really confusing, it follows three friends Maya, James and Dan in their final year of high school while they prepare for the upcoming anime convention.
My main problem with this one was the amount of plots that felt incomplete, they simply lead to nowhere and I was really annoyed by that, it would’ve been so much better if the author had focused only on a few of them and really explored their potential, I liked all the discussion of cultural appropriation, racism, the anxiety of trying to meet parents expectations, these plot deserved a better conclusion.

I’m not sure I would recommend this graphic novel to anyone.

“Thank you netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for my honest review”

Alissa M. Sallah's latest work 'Weeaboo' is a must read for all the graphic novel lovers. I absolutely loved the storyline and presentation. The author's command over language and narration is evident by the way she has weaved this story with utmost care and attention. Overall, it was a great experience. I highly recommend this work and give it full 5 stars.

Happy Reading

I rather liked the art in this comic. The characters’ faces were kind of unattractive but the watercolor painting style of the coloring made up for it, I thought. I liked the classic anime art thrown into the mix too, and thought the two different styles being used to show fantasy sequences vs. “IRL” were a nice touch.

Although I have honestly only watched a few anime series (don’t ask me anything about Pokémon!) I still got all the references used in the book. Maybe that means it wasn’t quite weeaboo enough, or maybe it’s just the right level for even a low-level weeaboo to understand, which might be a good thing since it can be understood by a wider audience.

To me this comic felt authentic. Casual racism and homophobia are pervasive throughout the story, but that’s life. Today’s media tends to paint the world in rose-color, and it’s fantastic to see characters in comics or on TV or in books be themselves with total acceptance and no repercussions. But it’s not realistic. Racism and homophobia are still actual daily hurdles for many of us, and the sad fact is that often there’s nothing we can do about it. Life isn’t always fair. And sometimes you can’t fight back or stand up for yourself because that will get you killed.

I read a review for this comic that said it’s racist and homophobic and that the characters that are abused by bigots and that’s just the end for them. I don’t agree with that at all.

For example, Maya’s sexuality is implied to be lesbian. But her grandmother expresses her disgust of gay people. When you’re a teen in a homophobic household, coming out is not necessarily a safe thing to do. This story is just a glimpse into the senior year of the characters’ high school lives. It wouldn’t be realistic for her to come out and have a happy ending in the span of a single year. Just because Maya doesn’t come out to her family or try to open a dialogue with her grandmother in this comic doesn’t mean she never will. She’s still a kid. Teenage years are fleeting. I think it’s unfair to say nothing is resolved at the end of the comic because the story only takes place in a limited time frame. And though she is additionally dealing with people being racist towards her at school and online, I don’t think she was passive about it. I think it’s completely fine that she deleted the racist comment on her blog without engaging with her attacker. There’s about a 100 percent chance you cannot change a bigoted troll online by trying to converse with them, and certainly not by arguing. I think Maya’s decision to delete the comment and move on was the mature thing to do. And she told Danny she planned to do something new with her hair, and it was implied that she was going to change to a more natural, black hairstyle rather than straightening it like she felt pressured to do to fit in with a white crowd. I don’t think she just straightened her hair and conformed forever.

Danny also did not accept her situation. She’s indicated to be possibly nonbinary or transmasculine. Or maybe she’s a cis girl that simply doesn’t fancy dresses or damsel roles. Whatever her deal is, she knows what’s comfortable for her. It took her a while to decide she was going to stand up for herself and be herself, but she did it in the most public space imaginable and it worked out fantastically for her. She was able to stand up to André and let him know he was being pushy and making things between them awkward; she was able to show her co-stars, staff, and audience of the school play that she could take on a masculine role and succeed beautifully.

Finally, there’s James. He did speak up several times when others made racist comments. He’s a shy introvert so even his weak protests took a lot of courage. And he did get his close friends, at the very least, to understand his pain and they apologized and made up. Again, you can’t pick fights with bigots. Racism and homophobia are just ridiculous concepts with no legitimate foundations other than ignorance and hate, so there are times when it’s pointless to engage with people who cling tightly to those ideals. They are not rational people. Plus he was just one kid. It’s his responsibility to stay safe, it’s not his job to tackle all the racism in the world. There are adult ways he can do that later in life. What he did do for himself was take care of his immediate surroundings, letting his friends know that certain words and actions hurt him, and their relationships were strengthened once they came from a place of understanding. And by the end of the story he was so much braver, after his first experience at changing just a tiny piece of the world. I think his future is looking bright.

I really connected with each of the characters in different ways. I felt they were very realistic. And even if some of the themes were a bit dark, the comic shows how people from different walks of life can find common ground, that sharing interests can build strong bonds, and that we can all take on the world one small step at a time. I thought it was beautifully done. I’m a fan.