Forest Hills Bootleg Society

Starred review from June 20, 2022
When best friends Kelly Nahas, Brooke Imafidon, Maggie Hilcot, and Melissa Cho buy a bootleg anime DVD from a local Forest Hills, Calif., gas station, the teens are shocked by its contents. SuperLove XL, which features a giant mech that shoots lasers from its breasts, is the most suggestive thing they’ve ever seen, and they can’t stop watching. The girls decide to make more bootleg copies and sell them to the teen boys in their conservative Christian town, but as demand for more salacious anime—and the pressure to remain discreet—grows, the operation may threaten their friendship. Collaborators Baker and Goux (Everyone Is Tulip) employ expertly layered paneling and muted blue hues to magnify emotional highs and lows. Paired with Baker and Goux’s snappy dialogue and expressive, visually varied characters, the group’s interpersonal challenges—including Brooke, Kelly, and Melissa’s love triangle, and Maggie’s struggles navigating loneliness—are deeply relatable and fully realized. While the creators delicately navigate heavy topics such as homophobia, mental health, and racism, this sincere graphic novel, set in 2005, is not without humor and hope. Kelly is of Saudi Arabian descent, Brooke is Black, Melissa is Asian, and Maggie is white. Ages 14–up. Agent: Charlie Olsen, InkWell Management. (Aug.)■

July 1, 2022
Four social outcasts turn their love of anime into fast cash at the price of their identities and boundaries in this ode to the early 2000s. Brooke Imafidon's, Melissa Cho's, Kelly Nahas', and Maggie Hilcot's lives change when they purchase a bootleg anime DVD. Initial shock over the feature's sexual elements turns to fascination and entrepreneurism as they sell burned copies to classmates at their Christian boarding school. Sales success brings money as well as attention and interpersonal drama, complicated by a love triangle among the four girls. The story takes place in Forest Hills, California, a small town with a repressive, toxic culture. Bullies, cliques, and homophobic teachers represent some of the influences pushing the protagonists and others to alienation and quiet yearning. Skillful, detailed art reminiscent of the girls' beloved genre brings the cast to life through expressive body language as well as paneling that changes in scale and perspective. One-page asides flesh out each protagonist's backstory as well as those of background characters who have their own rich inner lives. Names and physical appearances--while somewhat obscured by the green, black, and white palette--cue ethnic diversity in the main cast, but, contrasting with the treatment of sexuality and faith, this element is not developed in any depth. This is a witty and absorbing examination of a community's painful experiences with loneliness, queer romance, and strangely bewitching anime. An evocative, tender, character-driven coming-of-age story. (Graphic fiction. 14-18)

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October 15, 2022
Grades 9-12 Kelly (an anime fanatic), Brooke, and Melissa--all students at a Christian boarding school--sneak out with Maggie (a townie) to buy a bootleg copy of My Neighbor Totoro, but they unknowingly come back with a DVD of Superlove XL instead. Shocked and intrigued by the plot (and the number of tentacles), the friends quickly realize they could make money selling copies of the DVD to their classmates. Each of the girls has her own secrets: Kelly and Brooke are in a secret relationship; Melissa pines for Kelly's attention; and Maggie just wants to belong. As the DVDs--and the money they're making--get them noticed by the popular kids, the girls change, as does the way they see themselves. While coming-of-age stories set in boarding schools are nothing new, this graphic novel grapples with the topics of identity, attraction, faith, and family with a modern sensibility. The black-and-white artwork, washed in shades of green, is quiet, capturing the moods of the girls, their worry, heartbreak, and moments of triumph in only a few lines. A fine example of a familiar trope.

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