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Squad, written by Maggie Tokuda-Hall and illustrated by Lisa Sterle, is the story of Becca, a high school student searching for her place in the world.

What I liked:

• Tokuda-Hall expertly depicts characters’ emotions and thought processes. A story like Squad, with a broad fantasy world condensed into a graphic novel script, heavily relies on the reader’s emotional investment in Becca and her friends to be successful. I’m happy to report Tokuda-Hall’s writing sucked me right in, the quietly compelling opening scenes – such as Becca giving Marley a tampon – reminiscent of many of the school story manga I’ve read, with their deceptively restrained but slyly addictive beginnings.

What I learned:

• Piedmont is a real place! I’m not sure if the Piedmont depicted in Squad is based on the actual Piedmont in the East Bay, but that was a bit of a fun fact for me, since, in spite of being a Bay Area kid, I had never heard of Piedmont.

Questions I had:

• Is Becca meant to be nikkei? I read her as such, but I was also conscious of potentially being wrong.
• How much did the plot and cast of Squad evolve from start to finish? Specifically, I’m curious about editorial revisions made with regard to race and/or ethnicity. For example, I read both alphas as being white, but is this correct? If so, what was Tokuda-Hall’s (or her editor’s) reasoning behind this choice? A fascinating discussion about the racialized social dynamics of Bay Area high school cliques could be drawn from this point, but since I’m not sure if my assumptions about the alphas being white are correct, I’ll leave things here for now.
• Does Tokuda-Hall have future works planned in the Squad universe? It would be interesting to delve more deeply into Becca’s family story, as well as her future adventures.
• How do gay nikkei readers feel about the portrayal of Becca and Marley’s relationship? (Note: I do not know if the gay representation is #ownvoices for Tokuda-Hall.)
• How do Black readers feel about Amanda’s portrayal? What made Tokuda-Hall include a Black character in Squad?

Follow-up:

• I need to look up some interviews with Tokuda-Hall. I’m so curious about her overall approach to writing, how she decides what types of stories and genres to write, and how she views her work in relation to work by other nikkei writers.