The bird and the lynx

I want to talk a little bit about this visual here. This is the print on the Hagoromo Clear Clutch Bag which was released in February 2021. It shows a bird with a stem of rye in his beak, and a lynx holding a letter in his mouth.

We already know that Eiji is often depicted as a bird in the series and that Ash envies him because he can fly, he’s free. So the bird is definitely Eiji. The stem of rye in its beak must be a reference to The Catcher In The Rye, and this is one of the many references that Banana Fish makes to the famous literary title. The final episode of the anime is entitled The Catcher In The Rye. The second ending of the anime shows Ash and Eiji in a rye field at sunset. And there’s this beautiful cover of the TV Animation Official Guide “Moment.” I talked about how I thought the “catcher in the rye” in Banana Fish was Eiji in this meta here and this visual works perfectly with that interpretation.

Now for the lynx, it is obviously Ash, as he’s is known in the streets as “Ash Lynx.” By the way, I wonder how he got that nickname... And how did ‘Aslan’ become ‘Ash’ in the first place? Because his father calls him Ash too? Anyway, besides his nickname being “lynx,” Ash is likened to a variety of wild cat species throughout the story but always by his adversaries (Golzine, Yut-Lung, Foxx, etc.). This is important. I don’t remember any of his friends or allies ever making that allusion. Certainly not Eiji, who as we all know, thinks of Ash as a teenager like himself, which is kind of the whole point of the story. And finally, Ash himself draws a parallel between himself and the leopard in Hemingway’s “Snows of Kilimanjaro.”

As for the letter in the lynx’s mouth, it is clearly Eiji’s letter. I really like how the lynx is only slightly facing the bird like he’s trying to make up his mind about what he just read in the letter. And the bird looks like he just landed next to the lynx at the last minute before he has to take off again to offer him a stem of rye (the ticket to Japan maybe?), symbolizing a life where he can heal.

Anyway, there you have it. Banana Fish explained by a simple but very meaningful visual. Now I feel like everything I’ve written so far was redundant. I should have just posted the photo and the reference link because the image just speaks for itself.