lovemankind (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lovemankind) wrote2019-03-06 09:59 pm
lovemankind) wrote2019-03-06 09:59 pm
Entry tags:
Banana Fish: I'll send you to hell in twenty-two minutes
*deep, deep sigh* Banana Fish. No show with a name like this has any right to get me fucked up the way you did.
MODERATE SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE ANIME SERIES OF BANANA FISH BELOW THE CUT.
also hey what's up doubleposting with what will hopefully be the first of many casual reviews i do here
I initially caught wind of Banana Fish over the summer, around the time the first episode aired. I watched it weekly for - well, I think it was only two weeks, haha. Maybe three or four. I'm usually not great at keeping up with actively airing television unless I'm watching it with someone else, and I was a little bored during the prison arc without Ash and Eiji interacting. But last Wednesday I was idly flipping between streaming services and remembered that Banana Fish was on Amazon Prime, so I thought, "what the hell, why not." Why not, indeed. I spent Friday and Saturday bingewatching after work, and by the time I finished the series on Saturday night I was a shell of a person.
If you're not familiar with Banana Fish, the series follows Ash Lynx, a former runaway turned unwilling mafia ward turned gang leader, who at the start of the show has just been handed a vial filled with a mysterious drug by a dying stranger. This stranger's last words are "banana fish", the only words that Ash's elder brother has been able to say since returning from the Iraq War. Naturally, Ash tries to get to the bottom of this, but when the mafia catches wind, they try to take the drug back. Unfortunately, caught in the crossfire is Eiji Okumura, a university student from Japan who was helping his boss do a photography report on street gangs. But from these unlikely beginnings... springs a love that will last through time.
Normally that would be an exaggeration but with Banana Fish, it's seriously not. I mean, of course there's a lot more that happens in the broader plot, but the emotional core of the show rapidly becomes the love between Ash and Eiji. I want to clarify right now: it's never explicitly stated that Ash and Eiji romantically love each other, and they never kiss or physically consummate their relationship. I know from experience how much it sucks to see someone pitch a show as "totally gay" when the canon is ambiguous or just subtext-y, so I want to make that clear. That being said, the mangaka has stated that they're in love, the show spells it out in every other possible way, and the original manga is considered a classic BL work. There isn't a lot of constant no-homo "bro we're such good platonic friends" bullshit either, which is one of my biggest media turn-offs. All of the other characters are constantly remarking upon how much Ash loves Eiji or Eiji loves Ash and it's the gayest goddamn thing I've ever seen in my life I'm dying. The manga was written in the 80s, and I do wish that they had updated this aspect of the story along with the timeline, but for me it's not a deal-breaker because their relationship is still the ultimate focus and core of the show. My formative experience with gay fiction was with older novels and manga, which had a lot of ambiguity and tragedy, so I tend to be rather forgiving of these things, particularly if the source material is a little older. That's not to say I'm right, it's just how my tastes turned out.
(Major warning for CSA/rape/child abuse for the next few paragraphs.)
There's another major aspect of the show that I think it's best to warn people about in advance: Ash's storyline deals heavily with his history of sexual abuse. Without spoiling too much of the plot or going into graphic detail, Ash was repeatedly assaulted by an adult as a young child, and was abducted, trafficked in a brothel and filmed for child pornography for years after he ran away at age eleven. The mafia don who "took him in" was and is his primary abuser, and has been grooming him as his son-heir-child bride ever since. Most of this is revealed within the first few episodes, although we find out more about it as the show goes on, both through Ash himself and through other characters. It is probably the central defining feature of Ash's character, and it is a central element of the show as well.
Obviously, there are a lot of terrible books and movies about child abuse that use it in an exploitative way, without any thought or care beyond using a cheap, vulgar plot device to sell some extra copies. I want to note briefly that I don't think there is one single correct way to write about CSA, and I don't think exploring the topic, even in graphic detail, even by non-survivors, is inherently exploitative or crude. I have read some really terrific fiction about CSA that goes into deeply upsetting detail, and I think that level of detail can be an incredibly powerful tool. This is an extremely contentious topic in online circles right now, so I wanted to elaborate my own stance.
Banana Fish does not do this. When it comes to dialogue, it's graphic and unambiguous - an adult character in the first episode leers at Ash and says how much he loved Ash's "old movies", and as we learn more about Ash's past it's never sugar-coated. (Like I said, I'm trying to avoid too many direct spoilers.) But it's not - for lack of a better way to phrase it, it's never horny. The focus is always on how devastating this was (and is) for Ash as a person, how badly it fucked him up. When Ash flirts with adult men or uses his sexuality as a tool, it's sad, because it's made clear to us that that's his only reference point for sex and sexuality, and that's heartbreaking. (It's also a reason Ash and Eiji's lack of consummation didn't bother me as much as it might have in another series.) There's a scene later in the show that I don't want to spoil because it hit me like a cannonball in the gut when I watched it, but it more or less brings all of this tension to a boiling point. This is simultaneously the part of the show that makes me most want to recommend it to others, and the part that makes me the most hesitant.
(CSA/rape tw ends here. TL;DR: Banana Fish deals heavily with child sexual abuse, rape, and child pornography, and should be watched with caution.)
Wow, heavy topic, huh! I feel like I should make some token effort to talk about the plot now, because the plot is, you know, The Plot, but my enjoyment of the plot was really as a vehicle for Ash and Eiji to make impassioned statements of devotion to one another. Not that the plot was bad! I really liked how there was always a sense of legitimate tension when the characters were in danger, since the show established early on that even traditionally "safe" characters could be killed off. I know this isn't everybody's cup of tea, but it really enhances the stakes in dramatic sequences when you're actually worried that they might die. There were some times when I had a little trouble keeping track of events or side characters, but that's often the case for me so I won't put that as a definitive flaw. The pseudoscience of the drug itself was pretty par for the course as far as Mystery Drug plot devices go, but that was all it needed to be, and it never got so over the top that the lack of realism bothered me.
God, okay, I know I keep talking about Ash and Eiji, but I couldn't leave this post without discussing the tenderness. God, the tenderness. Grand declarations are all well and good - and they seriously are good in this show - but what really got me were the quiet moments. The personal scenes where we see that for all their differences, both personal and cultural, Ash and Eiji really work well together on a fundamental level. Ash hating the natto Eiji makes for breakfast, but later handing him a hot dog from a street vendor and calling it "America's natto". (Eiji is as overwhelmed by the sharp scent of the mustard as Ash was by the fermented natto, and Ash's revenge is complete.) Eiji teaching Ash Japanese, and Ash proudly showing off the slang he learned from Ibe-san, to Eiji's amusement. There's this one scene that I really don't want to spoil, and so I can't give a good description of why it's so sweet, but... well, it's sweet. I didn't really think this through, huh! (It's the one with the pumpkins.)
I'm not going to spend long on the issue of the ending, because I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about it, in the sense of my view of the narrative as a whole and not just my knee-jerk emotional response. As far as that emotional response goes, though, I was thoroughly gutted. I was vaguely spoiled a few months ago, but as the finale continued I started to hope that I had misinterpreted the posts that I had seen. Nope! I hadn't! And holy shit, the execution was so much more devastating than I could have imagined. I mean... fuck, dude.
As much as I want to sit all of my friends down and force them to marathon Banana Fish with me so I can have someone to talk to about it, this show definitely isn't for everyone. Child abuse and rape are heavy, heavy topics, and I completely understand that a lot of people aren't looking for that in their entertainment. Other people find the semi-unconfirmed nature of Ash and Eiji's relationship a frustrating relic of past homophobia that should have been left behind with the old setting. I get that too. And despite all of my praise, Banana Fish is far from perfect. But it hit something inside me that I can't quite put into words, and that something is still ringing, even now.
(It is so hard not to make a joke about "igniting my pale heart" right now, holy shit)
MODERATE SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE ANIME SERIES OF BANANA FISH BELOW THE CUT.
also hey what's up doubleposting with what will hopefully be the first of many casual reviews i do here
I initially caught wind of Banana Fish over the summer, around the time the first episode aired. I watched it weekly for - well, I think it was only two weeks, haha. Maybe three or four. I'm usually not great at keeping up with actively airing television unless I'm watching it with someone else, and I was a little bored during the prison arc without Ash and Eiji interacting. But last Wednesday I was idly flipping between streaming services and remembered that Banana Fish was on Amazon Prime, so I thought, "what the hell, why not." Why not, indeed. I spent Friday and Saturday bingewatching after work, and by the time I finished the series on Saturday night I was a shell of a person.
If you're not familiar with Banana Fish, the series follows Ash Lynx, a former runaway turned unwilling mafia ward turned gang leader, who at the start of the show has just been handed a vial filled with a mysterious drug by a dying stranger. This stranger's last words are "banana fish", the only words that Ash's elder brother has been able to say since returning from the Iraq War. Naturally, Ash tries to get to the bottom of this, but when the mafia catches wind, they try to take the drug back. Unfortunately, caught in the crossfire is Eiji Okumura, a university student from Japan who was helping his boss do a photography report on street gangs. But from these unlikely beginnings... springs a love that will last through time.
Normally that would be an exaggeration but with Banana Fish, it's seriously not. I mean, of course there's a lot more that happens in the broader plot, but the emotional core of the show rapidly becomes the love between Ash and Eiji. I want to clarify right now: it's never explicitly stated that Ash and Eiji romantically love each other, and they never kiss or physically consummate their relationship. I know from experience how much it sucks to see someone pitch a show as "totally gay" when the canon is ambiguous or just subtext-y, so I want to make that clear. That being said, the mangaka has stated that they're in love, the show spells it out in every other possible way, and the original manga is considered a classic BL work. There isn't a lot of constant no-homo "bro we're such good platonic friends" bullshit either, which is one of my biggest media turn-offs. All of the other characters are constantly remarking upon how much Ash loves Eiji or Eiji loves Ash and it's the gayest goddamn thing I've ever seen in my life I'm dying. The manga was written in the 80s, and I do wish that they had updated this aspect of the story along with the timeline, but for me it's not a deal-breaker because their relationship is still the ultimate focus and core of the show. My formative experience with gay fiction was with older novels and manga, which had a lot of ambiguity and tragedy, so I tend to be rather forgiving of these things, particularly if the source material is a little older. That's not to say I'm right, it's just how my tastes turned out.
(Major warning for CSA/rape/child abuse for the next few paragraphs.)
There's another major aspect of the show that I think it's best to warn people about in advance: Ash's storyline deals heavily with his history of sexual abuse. Without spoiling too much of the plot or going into graphic detail, Ash was repeatedly assaulted by an adult as a young child, and was abducted, trafficked in a brothel and filmed for child pornography for years after he ran away at age eleven. The mafia don who "took him in" was and is his primary abuser, and has been grooming him as his son-heir-child bride ever since. Most of this is revealed within the first few episodes, although we find out more about it as the show goes on, both through Ash himself and through other characters. It is probably the central defining feature of Ash's character, and it is a central element of the show as well.
Obviously, there are a lot of terrible books and movies about child abuse that use it in an exploitative way, without any thought or care beyond using a cheap, vulgar plot device to sell some extra copies. I want to note briefly that I don't think there is one single correct way to write about CSA, and I don't think exploring the topic, even in graphic detail, even by non-survivors, is inherently exploitative or crude. I have read some really terrific fiction about CSA that goes into deeply upsetting detail, and I think that level of detail can be an incredibly powerful tool. This is an extremely contentious topic in online circles right now, so I wanted to elaborate my own stance.
Banana Fish does not do this. When it comes to dialogue, it's graphic and unambiguous - an adult character in the first episode leers at Ash and says how much he loved Ash's "old movies", and as we learn more about Ash's past it's never sugar-coated. (Like I said, I'm trying to avoid too many direct spoilers.) But it's not - for lack of a better way to phrase it, it's never horny. The focus is always on how devastating this was (and is) for Ash as a person, how badly it fucked him up. When Ash flirts with adult men or uses his sexuality as a tool, it's sad, because it's made clear to us that that's his only reference point for sex and sexuality, and that's heartbreaking. (It's also a reason Ash and Eiji's lack of consummation didn't bother me as much as it might have in another series.) There's a scene later in the show that I don't want to spoil because it hit me like a cannonball in the gut when I watched it, but it more or less brings all of this tension to a boiling point. This is simultaneously the part of the show that makes me most want to recommend it to others, and the part that makes me the most hesitant.
(CSA/rape tw ends here. TL;DR: Banana Fish deals heavily with child sexual abuse, rape, and child pornography, and should be watched with caution.)
Wow, heavy topic, huh! I feel like I should make some token effort to talk about the plot now, because the plot is, you know, The Plot, but my enjoyment of the plot was really as a vehicle for Ash and Eiji to make impassioned statements of devotion to one another. Not that the plot was bad! I really liked how there was always a sense of legitimate tension when the characters were in danger, since the show established early on that even traditionally "safe" characters could be killed off. I know this isn't everybody's cup of tea, but it really enhances the stakes in dramatic sequences when you're actually worried that they might die. There were some times when I had a little trouble keeping track of events or side characters, but that's often the case for me so I won't put that as a definitive flaw. The pseudoscience of the drug itself was pretty par for the course as far as Mystery Drug plot devices go, but that was all it needed to be, and it never got so over the top that the lack of realism bothered me.
God, okay, I know I keep talking about Ash and Eiji, but I couldn't leave this post without discussing the tenderness. God, the tenderness. Grand declarations are all well and good - and they seriously are good in this show - but what really got me were the quiet moments. The personal scenes where we see that for all their differences, both personal and cultural, Ash and Eiji really work well together on a fundamental level. Ash hating the natto Eiji makes for breakfast, but later handing him a hot dog from a street vendor and calling it "America's natto". (Eiji is as overwhelmed by the sharp scent of the mustard as Ash was by the fermented natto, and Ash's revenge is complete.) Eiji teaching Ash Japanese, and Ash proudly showing off the slang he learned from Ibe-san, to Eiji's amusement. There's this one scene that I really don't want to spoil, and so I can't give a good description of why it's so sweet, but... well, it's sweet. I didn't really think this through, huh! (It's the one with the pumpkins.)
I'm not going to spend long on the issue of the ending, because I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about it, in the sense of my view of the narrative as a whole and not just my knee-jerk emotional response. As far as that emotional response goes, though, I was thoroughly gutted. I was vaguely spoiled a few months ago, but as the finale continued I started to hope that I had misinterpreted the posts that I had seen. Nope! I hadn't! And holy shit, the execution was so much more devastating than I could have imagined. I mean... fuck, dude.
As much as I want to sit all of my friends down and force them to marathon Banana Fish with me so I can have someone to talk to about it, this show definitely isn't for everyone. Child abuse and rape are heavy, heavy topics, and I completely understand that a lot of people aren't looking for that in their entertainment. Other people find the semi-unconfirmed nature of Ash and Eiji's relationship a frustrating relic of past homophobia that should have been left behind with the old setting. I get that too. And despite all of my praise, Banana Fish is far from perfect. But it hit something inside me that I can't quite put into words, and that something is still ringing, even now.
(It is so hard not to make a joke about "igniting my pale heart" right now, holy shit)