This graphic novel is not overtly rated and I did find it in the general adult section of my library. That said, both Goodreads and WorldCAT have categorized it as young adult and that certainly did not surprise me.

Flipping to the back of the book, Juni Ba describes themselves as "what happens when the influences of 2000s era Cartoon Network enter the brain of an average Senegalese boy. Since growing up in Dakar, he has come up with several works including the Monkey Meat Comics, the Kayin and Abeni miniseries with co-writer  Keenan Kornegay, as well as being featured in the publications of the Nigerian house Kugali. Djeliya is his first graphic novel, but hopefully the first of many, to tackle subjects in and out of Africa."

Keywords that came to mind: Folklore, colour, adventure, cartoon network nostalgia, and storytelling.

Looking at the art, it was by far the most stand out part of this particular volume. Not that anything else was seriously lacking, but more so that it was just so fun and interesting and (to be fair) nostalgic and skillful. We cycle through a couple of different dramatic colour pallets and the character designs were really unique and dynamic.

Writing wise, based off of some of the more negative reviews on goodreads I gather this is not the most easy story to follow if you aren't already used to graphic novels. This also seems like a book not necessarily directly aimed at so called north american audiences and some of my peers are not used to consuming media that isn't directly aimed at spoon feeding them. Not that that was everyone's critique; the art is not to everyone's taste for example. But I figure it's important to balance out my perspective.

Gender didn't seem to be a particular focus of the story but is fairly balanced in the seemingly most binary sense.

And I'll insert my caveat that clearly queer people have existed through all time and space, but that was also not a particular focus of the story and not seemingly a point of much diversity.

Race was also apparently a bit one note, but as this fills in a very important gap in general publishing trends I don't really care.

Class got a bit of focus based on the position of the main character I guess.

and I may be missing something but ability/disability also didn't seem to come up.

TLDR not a very character driven story as much as an action adventure dealing a lot with culture and creativity.

To conclude, I think I will join the main chorus in rating this book four out of five stars. I really enjoyed it.