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Yoshida Akimi’nin yürek dağlayan eseri BANANA FISH hakkında delirmeceler Spoiler’lar burası hariç her yerde #banana fish türkçe
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Different worlds: Eiji (3)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

Originally posted on 19 December 2019 in Turkish here.

This is the part where things get complicated. Eiji will discover the true extent of Ash’s solitude and try to save him from a fatalistic mindset.

Like I mentioned in the other meta, Ash doesn’t want to kill. On the other hand, he shows no mercy to those who sold their friends out to Arthur. Or let me rephase that: Ash can’t take the risk of showing mercy to these spineless cowards who indirectly caused members of his gang to be killed. In the meantime, Eiji more or less knows what Ash is up to until late at night. He pieces together the bits he overheard Ash tell his gang members and the news about gang violence. Still, Eiji doesn’t judge him without hearing his side of the story. Instead he calmly asks him about what is going on.

Eiji gives Ash an opportunity to explain himself first. When Ash brushes him off, he points out the blood stain on his t-shirt, making it clear that he wants an explanation. He shows Ash the article on New York Times and asks him “Did you do this?” Then he softly adds “I don’t want to believe it…” This last sentence serves to make Ash understand that Eiji’s disappointed in him. Yeah, that’s just how good Eiji is at expressing his emotions.

Ash, on the other hand, is already feeling guilty about the lives he took, so being confronted about it makes him angry and defensive. He brazenly tells Eiji “And so what?” I think Ash is trying to act all nonchalant about it because he’s trying to convince himself that he did the right thing. But Eiji doesn’t know what to make of this sudden shift in attitude because just a few days ago he witnessed the extent of Ash’s trauma with killing when Ash cried his heart out on his lap. So Eiji gets angry because he’s scared. He wanted to protect Ash’s soul but now he’s scared that he has already lost him for good. Fueled by disappointment, his next remark hits home: “You now are not you! You’re not the Ash that I and Skip and Shorter knew so well!”

Remember the part where Eiji was thinking to himself that he feared Ash was slowly drifting away from him even when they were so close? This is the first time Eiji voices that fear, which leads Ash to conclude that Eiji started seeing him differently than before. And that thought is enough to make him panic because Ash always took consolation from the fact that, in Eiji’s eyes, he was just a teenager, not a cold-blooded murderer (although he just called himself a murderer in front of Eiji).

Seeing Ash storm out of the apartment, Eiji regrets his words immediately. He also feels guilty about defending others and telling Ash that he wouldn’t understand the feelings of the “have-nots” while he failed to understand Ash’s feelings in the first place. The last thing Ash said before he left the apartment keeps echoing in his mind: “I never ever wanted to be exceptional in my whole life!”

I assume Eiji then spent a sleepless night thinking things over and followed the logic I explained here, which lead him to look at things differently: Ash’s actions aren’t always dictated by his will or desires. He does certain things not because he wants to but because he has to, because “his world” compels him to. So Eiji decides to go and apologize to Ash as he thinks he hurt him while all he intended to do was to warn him. On the other hand, Ash probably thinks he lost Eiji for good after that fight like I explained in this meta. But it’s not like this was something he didn’t expect.

The look on Ash’s face here is just so raw… And this scene is proof enough that he didn’t believe Eiji when he said he would stay with him forever just the night before. For Ash, that was just an empty promise made on the spur of the moment by an innocent boy who didn’t belong in his world. But like everything else with Eiji, it was meant well.

Ash was ashamed of what he did and wanted to protect Eiji, so he didn’t tell him what he was up to, but of course he didn’t expect Eiji to remain clueless. That’s why I think it didn’t come as a surprise to Ash when Eiji wanted to confront him about the killings. But when Eiji outright tells him that his talents and gifts (which are nothing but a curse to Ash) make him exceptional, Ash is deeply hurt. Before, Ash always knew that Eiji was on his side even if he didn’t understand Ash’s feelings. Not this time. Ash realizes that Eiji’s not with him on this one and that realization makes him feel very lonely. That’s why he goes to the library. Ash turns to books when he has no one else. It’s as if the library is a reflection of his inner self.

The morning after the fight, Eiji asks Bones and Kong where Ash might be. They tell him, “The boss likes to come to the library when he wants to be alone.” Actually, it’s the other way around. Ash comes to the library because he feels alone. We know what went through Eiji’s mind when he found Ash reading on his own in the library because he tells Ibe-san at the end of the story. In that moment it’s like everything falls into place and Eiji makes up his mind.

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Different worlds: Eiji (2)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

Originally posted on 7 August 2019 in Turkish here.

In Part 1 of this meta, I wrote about Eiji’s life before he met Ash and how helping Ash became a new purpose in life for him at a time when he felt lost. In this part, Eiji will get to know Ash better and discover his inner turmoil.

When Ash finds out in Los Angeles that the whole business with Banana Fish is basically a bottomless shithole, the first thing he does is to talk to Eiji to send him back to Japan where he will be safe. He doesn’t mince his words at all and flat-out tells Eiji “You’re a handicap to us.” But by then, having learned about the kind of childhood Ash had and seen the place he grew up in, Eiji has grown more attached to Ash. Also, Eiji saw more action in the last couple of months than he ever had in his 19 years—all when he was with Ash. So, naturally Eiji’s deeply hurt to hear Ash dismiss him so callously, but at the same time he knows that Ash is doing this for his own good. Eiji also can’t help but admit Ash is right, saying, “I can’t even protect myself. I will just mess things up… I know I’m useless.” But to Eiji’s surprise, Ash disagrees.

This is also the first time when Eiji gets a glimpse of what Ash thinks of him. Ash doesn’t go easy on him but makes sure that Eiji understands how unusual it is for Ash to see someone do something for him without expecting anything in return. As for Eiji, he did what he did because he wanted to and he thought it was something to be taken for granted. I had the impression that he was going to say “Anybody would have done the same thing” in the scene above before Ash interrupts him.

The sad thing is that the next time Ash and Eiji get together after this scene, they will have been cheated by Yut-lung, lost Shorter and barely escaped from Golzine’s clutches.

After Shorter’s death, Ash and Eiji grow more attached to one another. While the guilt of having killed his best friend gives Ash nightmares, Eiji becomes an anchor in his life, allowing Ash to mourn Shorter. As for Eiji, he holds himself responsible for what happened, believing that Ash killed Shorter to save him, and decides to stay with Ash no matter what.

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Different worlds: Eiji (1)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

Originally posted on 24 July 2019 in Turkish here.

Previously, I wrote about Ash’s perspective on how he and Eiji live in different worlds. Now it’s Eiji’s turn... The story of Banana Fish gives us a couple of hints about Eiji’s life before he came to New York. But our main source for the ‘different world’ that Eiji’s living in is the side story Fly boy, in the sky which was written before Banana Fish began serialization.

Fly boy, in the sky tells the story of how Ibe-san and Eiji met. Eiji is introduced as a high school student living with his parents and little sister in his hometown Izumo. He’s no different from the Eiji we know, except for the hair. An obedient, good-natured, baby-faced boy. He opens his already huge eyes to see better because he’s near-sighted and refuses to wear glasses for fear that the other kids will make fun of him in school. Yes, he’s a perfectly normal teenager.

Eiji is a member of the school’s athletics club and competes in pole-vaulting. He’s got a rival from another school and although the two boys have been competing against each other since middle school, his rival has grown a lot taller recently which puts Eiji at a considerable disadvantage. Now he keeps coming second in competitions (The second character in Eiji’s name “二” means “two”).

At home, things are not so easy for Eiji either. His father was hospitalized a year ago due to liver disorders, so Eiji has been living with his mother, sister and grandmother ever since. The family is not doing great financially. But above all, the 17-year-old Eiji is away from his father when he needs a male role model around the most. And he can’t bear to see his mother flirting with other men.

But Eiji really loves pole-vaulting even if he doesn’t realize it. When his body is suspended midair for two seconds, his mind becomes free of all thought and an expression of pure bliss appears on his face. So much so that Eiji can’t recognize himself when Ibe-san shows him the photos he took of Eiji when he was ‘flying’.

Eiji: Is this... me?
Ibe-san: Of course, it is!
Eiji: So this is how I look? Wow... I didn't know that...
Ibe-san: Right? You look so good.

Then we find out in Banana Fish that Eiji badly injured his foot and, although the injury eventually healed, he could no longer pole-vault. And later when he lost his sports scholarship, he became more and more withdrawn. Ibe-san tries very hard to lift him out of this depressive episode and finally decides to take Eiji to the US with him, thinking that some change of scenery might be good for him.

So the now 19-year-old Eiji finds himself in New York as Ibe-san’s assistant and meets Ash.

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🤔acb ashin asik oldugu 14 yasindaki olen kiz hakiinda baska 1 bilgi var mi🤨

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O kız hakkında hikaye bize başka bir bilgi vermiyor. Benim bu konuda bir teorim var yalnız. O kızın ölmesinde Arthur’un parmağı olabilir. Angel Eyes adlı yan hikayede 15 yaşındaki Ash dört kişiyi öldürmekten ıslahevine giriyor ve orada Shorter’la tanışıyor. Hikayenin sonunda Shorter, Ash’e “Sen de mi Arthur yüzünden buradasın?” gibi bir soru soruyor. Buradan anlıyoruz ki Ash’in yakalanıp ıslahevinde girmesinin Arthur’la bir alakası var. Eğer o kızı Arthur’un çetesindekiler öldürdüyse Ash de onların peşine düşüp bir iki (dört) tanesini indirmiştir diye düşünüyorum.

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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.

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Anonymous asked:

Bişey daha sorucam ash nasıl papa dinonun eline geçti küçük yaşta iken küçüklüğünden bahsedilirken belirli şeyler anlatılmış

Güzel soru. Ne anime ne de manga bunu bize gösteriyor. Animenin 6. bölümünde, manganın da 4. cildinde karakterlerin anlattıklarından neler olduğunu az çok biliyoruz. Ash’in geçmişiyle ilgili yazdığım metada bu konudan biraz bahsetmiştim.

Mavi Sakal olayı patlak verdikten sonra, yani küçük Ash istismarcısını öldürürken sonra, James oğlunun Cape Cod’da kalamayacağına karar veriyor. Neden, çünkü kasabada küçücük çocuğun istismarcısını ayarttığına dair dedikodular çıkıyor ve James bunlarla baş edemiyor. İşin bu noktaya varmasında Cape Cod ahalisinin kokuşmuşluğu kadar James’in çapsızlığının da rol oynadığını düşünüyorum. Ash’in babası James değil de gerçekten Max olsaydı mesela, böyle iğrenç bir durumu çok daha farklı yönetirdi. Ama Max eğitimli ve belli bir dünya görüşüne sahip. Orduda yer almış, savaş görmüş ve en önemlisi adam gazeteci. Eminim ortalığı ayağa kaldırır, olayı örtbas eden Cape Cod emniyetini de çok pis inletirdi. James ise hayatı boyunca Cape Cod’dan ayrılmamıştır bile. Neyse, bu konumuzun dışında.

James, küçük Ash’i Philedelphia’daki kız kardeşinin yanına göndermeye karar veriyor. Ash, Philedelphia’ya gittikten sonra mı, yoksa babasının bu planından haberdar olduktan sonra mı evden kaçıyor, bilmiyoruz. Marvin, Ash’i evden kaçtıktan ne kadar süre sonra buluyor, bilmiyoruz. Ash evden kaçtığında tam olarak kaç yaşında, bilmiyoruz. Ama Ash, Golzine’nin eline düştüğünde 11 yaşında olduğunu kendisi söylüyor.

Bu arada yanlış hatırlıyor olabilirim. Hatam varsa lütfen düzeltin.

Peki Ash neden evden kaçtı? Benim tahminim bu kadar büyük bir travma yaşadıktan sonra babasının ona destek olamadığını görmek Ash’i çok etkiledi. Belki de babasının onu kız kardeşinin yanına göndereceğini duyunca babasının onu istemediğini ve ondan kurtulmaya çalıştığını düşündü. Bunu yaparken James’in niyeti Ash’i korumaktı belki ama neticede Ash’i yanından uzaklaştırmış oldu. Ona ihtiyacı olan desteği vermeyip sorumluğu başkasına atmış oldu. Belki de Ash, Philedelphia’daki halasının yanına ulaştı ama onun da aynı James gibi ona destek olmayıp onu saklamaya, ona baskı yapmaya çalıştığını gördü ve haklı olarak buna gelemedi.

Okuduğum bir fanfic’te Ash, Eiji’ye New York’a gelme sebebinin annesini bulmak olduğunu anlatıyordu. Annesiyle ilgili hiçbir şey bilmiyor, sadece onun New York’lu olduğunu biliyor. Babası onun yanında olamayınca o da çocuk aklıyla annesini aramaya tek başına New York’a geliyor. Bu fikir çok hoşuma gitmişti ama fanfic’in başlığını hatırlayamıyorum maalesef (Bu arada Banana Fish’te Ash’in annesi için New York’lu diye değil, sadece büyük bir şehirde doğup büyümüş biri diye bahsediliyor. Max’ın anılarına göre ise Ash’in annesi Boston’lı).

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Blackbird - Part I (The Beatles)

Blackbird singing in the dead of night Take these broken wings and learn to fly All your life You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Ash had a guilty pleasure. He loved waking up to the sound of Eiji singing Blackbird to himself as he cooked breakfast. Eiji would always sing the first line in the verse, hum the second one and continue singing from the third and until the end of the chorus. And repeat. After singing the song over and over for around fifteen minutes, he’d switch to whistling the melody, which—Ash had to admit—he was better at.

It should have been so annoying, Ash thought—and actually, it was—but he couldn’t help but find it endearing at the same time.

It wasn’t about the song, not really, although “Blackbird” was literally everything Eiji was, but in song. Its tune so happy, its lyrics so hopeful… And Ash was sure that Eiji didn’t know what Paul McCartney was referring to when he wrote the song.

It’s just that there was something so comfortably mundane about drifting in and out of sleep while listening to Eiji’s clumsy singing and breathing in the delicious smells wafting from the kitchen. That’s why he took so long to get up every morning. And he was sure Eiji would stop singing if he found out Ash was awake. So he feigned sleep every time Eiji walked into their bedroom to finish up a chore or simply to check on him. Ash knew he was good at faking it because Eiji wouldn’t stop singing altogether—he’d just lower his voice to not wake him up and continue to hum the song from where he left off. No interruptions.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night Take these sunken eyes and learn to see All your life You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Ash should have been bothered by the fact that Eiji had grown so comfortable living with him—so comfortable that he’d happily sing to himself every morning. He felt guilty rather than bothered because he was secretly enjoying how much at ease Eiji felt beside him. If he had to admit it, Ash liked that Eiji liked being with him.

When did they fall into this routine anyway? The events in Los Angeles and Cape Cod seemed so distant. Ash tried to think back to when the singing first started. The pang he felt in his heart reminded him of exactly when. Shorter. Eiji had been singing this song since—since Ash broke down that night over the crushing weight of it all. That night when he had been at his lowest.

All your life You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Yes, clearly Eiji had no idea about what the song was about. Ash felt the pang in his heart return. This time it made him dread the force of it all the more because of how much he welcomed it. The best—worst—part of it was, now Ash knew that Eiji always had him in mind when he sang Blackbird.

*******

Eiji was a morning person. Ash was not. He loved ticking the chores of the day off the list so that he had the whole day to himself by the time Ash bothered to finally wake up.

He was the first on the track field back in high school, but that might have had something to do with his haste to leave home as early as possible. This was different—quite the opposite actually. Back then, he was—literally—pole-vaulting over his problems to avoid facing them.

Now Eiji had a purpose, fueling him to make himself useful and meet anything that may come Ash’s way head-on.

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly Into the light of a dark black night

There he was singing that song again! When Eiji heard it for the first time in Sako-sensei’s English class, he hadn’t thought much about it. Sure, it had a nice melody but he couldn’t understand anything from the lyrics back then. Even after his teacher, who was a Beatlemaniac, had painstakingly explained all the vocabulary. “Blackbird fly, just like you my ‘fly boys’!”

The song had come to him when they were in that first hideout flat. Maybe it was the effect of having spent a seemingly normal twenty-four hours for the first time after all the horror that started back in Los Angeles. One moment he was briskly preparing coffee, still fuming over Ash’s insolence, the next he was feeling very mature about how he handled the night before and started singing to himself.

Eiji hadn’t even realized that he still had the lyrics memorized. To his surprise, they made sense now. So many things had changed since he came to America that his improved English skills weren’t even worth mentioning.

But it was hard to explain how he had changed through it all. Eiji just knew that he could no longer go back to Japan and pick up his life from where he left off. Despite all the danger, pain, and death, he felt grounded in this strange and cruel world. He had found his footing here, precisely on the damp floorboards underneath his bare feet that night when Ash curled up on his lap and cried his soul out.

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly Into the light of a dark black night

Eiji knew it was stupid. Ash could hardly be a blackbird. But the idea of imagining Ash as a bird appealed to him, although he was definitely more suited to the role of a new-born chic—when he was still groggy from sleep—or a pompous yellow-crested cockatoo—once he was fully awake.

Eiji was also very well aware that “Blackbird” was a very ill-fitting soundtrack for this new life he was leading—it was half a century old and not exactly “gangsta”. But it just fit. It helped him concentrate. It helped him get through with it. It gave him hope. It was his anthem. He knew he was never going to get tired of signing it. Like he knew he was never going to leave Ash.

Read Part II (Alter Bridge) here.

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It’s been exactly 2 years since the last episode of BANANA FISH aired and no one’s been able to recover from it yet.

Here, Eiji’s bitterly reminding Ash of the date as if he’s asking him to account for his actions in the episode. And Ash’s all like “Oh, never mind that. THIS is more like what the reality looks like.”

This little story was partly inspired by a post by @bluejeans.ha on Instagram.

I guess no one will miss this year, but I’ll certainly miss this calendar. Thank you @a-hayashi for all the wonderful art in it ❤️ She saved the best one for last 🥰 

Speaking of the calendar, I think the cover does a pretty good job of summarizing 2020. It’s the year when “domestic asheiji” came to be seen as “lockdown asheiji”

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Merhaba, öncelikle blogunun harika olduğunu söylemek istiyorum. İçimi kan ağlatan yorumların,mangalardan kesitler vermen banana fish’i daha iyi anlamamı sağladı diyebilirim. Nerdeyse tüm postlarını okudum ve mental olarak çok yorulduğumu da belirtmek isterim:( Sana lşıklar Bahçesi’nde ne olduğunu sormak istiyorum. Cevaplarsan beni çok mutlu edersin. Bu kadar harika bir blog yazdığın için teşekkürler 👋🏽👋🏽

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Merhaba! Çok teşekkür ederim, blogumu beğenmene çok sevindim ❤️Ben de sevdiğim bir hikayeyle ilgili başkalarının yazdıklarını okuyup hikayede daha önce fark etmediğim şeyleri fark edince çok mutlu oluyorum hep. Aynısını yapabildiysem ne mutlu bana! 

Evet, Banana Fish çok ağır, çok yıpratıcı bir hikaye. İnsan üzerinde düşündükçe mental olarak yoruluyor. Seni çok iyi anlıyorum. Herhalde onun için hem hayranlar hem de yaratıcı kadro hikayenin daha sevimli kısımlarına odaklanmayı tercih ediyor. Manganın yazarı Akimi Yoshida gitmiş bizimkilerin bebekliğini çizmiş, kendi çapında eğlenmiş. Anime uyarlamasını bizlerle buluşturan Akemi Hayashi (karakter tasarımcısı) ve Hiroko Utsumi (yönetmen) çizdikleri official art’larda hep Ash ve Eiji’yi mutlu ve birlikte resmediyorlar. Hayranlar açısından bakınca da fandom’ın içi fluff fanfiction’ından geçilmiyor 😆

Işıklar Bahçesi bence “anlatılmaz yaşanır” bir hikaye. Çok bir şey olmuyormuş gibi duruyor ama aslında çok şey oluyor. Hikayeyi buradan Türkçe olarak okuyabilirsin. Ya da bana direct message gönderirsen seninle İngilizce’sini paylaşabilirim. Okumayı yüreğim kaldırmaz ama ne olduğunu bilmek istiyorum, diyorsan da yine bana doğrudan mesaj gönder, elimden geldiğince ne olduğunu anlatayım. Ana hatlarıyla hikaye Banana Fish’in bitiminden 7 yıl sonra yine New York’ta Eiji, Sing ve Ibe-san’ın çocuk yaştaki yeğeni Akira arasında geçiyor. Daha fazlasını söylemek spoiler vermeye girer.

Güzel mesajın için tekrar teşekkür ederim!

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Banana Fish Art & Staff Book

Look at what came in the mail! Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect when I ordered the Banana Fish Art & Staff Book, and it’s been so long since I placed the order that I almost forgot about it. But it completely blew my mind when I picked it up and browsed through the pages for the first time. It’s the ultimate tribute to the most touching human story of all time!

So the whole thing is a four-piece set: two books, one clear file and one envelope.

The first book (the larger one) includes line art of all the official art released to date (key animation, magazine covers, goods, collaborations, etc). It lists where it was featured and who drew/designed it. The archiver in me is ecstatic!

But my favorite is the second book. It features artwork and messages from all the staff who took part in the production of the anime series. They’re mostly thanking other staff for their hard work and talking about what a great experience it was to take part in the production. I haven’t read all of them yet (I find it really difficult to read Japanese handwriting) but I could tell that they were written so candidly. As for the artwork, expect to find anything and everything from character portraits in each staff member’s own style to imaginary scenes (some hit you right in the feels).

And let’s talk about the cover of the staff book... The scanned image above is from the clear file without the watermark of the book title. I’m guessing the artist is Akemi Hayashi (character designer) because she likes using romaji if the 2020 Banana Fish desk calendar is any indication XD I rotated the image over and over again, trying to make sense of what each character was up to. Since this is the cover of the staff book, I think it replicates a common scene from the production room, showing how the staff worked on a tight deadline because everyone seems to be losing their shit. Here’s what I made out of it:

Ash has his glasses on and is working frantically, grumbling “Why does it have to be me?!” He looks very pissed probably because he was asked to finish a task by Max who looks very apologetic behind him. Eiji is running with a bunch of papers and Ibe-san is yelling behind him, “Be careful!” Eiji, who is Ibe-san’s assistant for real this time, yells back “H-hai!” the way assistants do. Shorter enters the room with take-out lunch from Chang Dai and goes “Hey! Sorry for keeping everyone waiting~” Meanwhile, Blanca is probably showing Sing how to write his name in the Cyrillic script and being a real smart-ass about it. He says “You should write it like this,” and Sing seems fascinated. Next to them, Arthur is trying to look chill but at the same time throws dirty looks at Ash. He’s obviously jealous of him because Ash gets everything done again. On the other side, Yut-Lung looks fully concentrated on his screen, but is clearly stressed out as he keeps muttering to himself “Hmm, mmm.” Next to him, while everyone is busting their asses, Dino is drinking a glass of wine and watching YouTube videos, featuring a banana and a fish, with the sound on, because he’s a piece of shit.

Lastly, the two books and the clear file come in an envelope featuring New York at sunset seen from high up in the sky. It’s the last glimpse Eiji had of New York from the plane that we also get to see in the final episode. Okay, I won’t go there, I won’t say anything more.

Seriously, this book filled me with nostalgia and left me smiling. It’s amazing to see how the staff cherished Banana Fish just like we did as fans ❤️

This was just an initial review of the Art & Staff Book. I’ll take my time and go over it slowly and if I come across interesting bits (which I’m sure I will), I’ll post more.

Thank you @bananaroom7​ for keeping tabs on the availability of this book for preorder and letting her followers know. That’s how I was able to purchase my copy.

Follow the link in the source to take a peek at what’s inside the books.

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji Characters: Ash Lynx, Okumura Eiji Additional Tags: Character Study, Mentions of Canon Sexual Violence, Ficlet, Oneshot, Boys Kissing, Comfort Summary:

"The second time they kiss is nothing like the first."

For Eiji, it's the first real kiss of his life.

For Ash, it's the first kiss that isn't violence, or a lie.

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cosmicjoke

Ash, Skip and Michael

One of the most telling things from Banana Fish is Ash’s relationship with children.  We only see him interact with two in the entire series, that being Skip and Michael.  But I think it speaks volumes that it’s around these two characters that we see Ash noticeably soften in his attitude.  He’s actually tender towards Michael, and acts as a true comfort to him after Michael has suffered the trauma of his mother’s rape, walking with him and holding his hand, and actually hugging him.  Michael is the only character, in fact, that we see Ash actively initiate an embrace with in the series.  It’s always Eiji who hugs Ash, after all.  And of course Ash’s care towards Skip is just as obvious.  It says a lot, that, outside of Eiji, it’s really only around Michael that Ash lets his defenses completely down and allows himself to be so open with his affection.  It shows that Ash has a trust in children that he just simply doesn’t, and can’t have, in adults, or even older kids around his age.  

The same, I think, is demonstrated in his entrusting the care of Griff to Skip, out of everyone in his gang.  He trusts Skip to take good care of his older brother over everyone else.  I think Ash trusts these two characters so much because he himself has an intimate understanding of the implicit trust and innocence of children their age, because he himself had that same trust and innocence robbed from him right around the time he was Michael’s age.  I think Ash’s tenderness towards Michael demonstrates with heartbreaking clarity his understanding of the loss of that innocence in himself.  It’s even more upsetting when you realize that, the kind of comfort he offers Michael was exactly what he himself was denied by his own father when he’d come home that day, after being raped by his baseball coach. 

Years later, in Garden of Light, we see Michael when he’s older, and he still thinks of Ash as his hero, and it’s because of that one moment when Ash gave him comfort after a traumatic experience.  Ash understood on a visceral level the importance of offering a traumatized child comfort, and the fact that that offer of comfort still affects and stays with Michael years later, is proof of its importance and impact on him.  How much it meant to him.  He only meets Ash that one time, but there’s an indelible impression left on him by that meeting.  An unforgettable importance in his memory of this amazing boy who gave to him freely what was always denied to himself.  That Ash had that understanding, in spite of only ever receiving the exact opposite, in spite of the blatant cruelty and abuse he suffered at the hands of every adult in his life, in spite of having only selfish and sadistic men to serve as role models for him growing up, is testament to Ash’s own innate goodness.  Further proof, again, that he never was a monster, and never could be, despite being surrounded by them his entire life, and with every effort made to make him the same.  

Anyway, I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this as well!  What does everyone think of Ash’s relationship to Skip and Michael?

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vashak

@cosmicjoke This is beautifully written!

I want to highlight this part once more: “Michael is the only character, in fact, that we see Ash actively initiate an embrace with in the series.  It’s always Eiji who hugs Ash, after all.” That is spot on! Thank you for bringing this detail up to attention.

Right around the time I first started this blog, I made a post about Ash’s relationship with Michael referring to the scenes you mentioned. It’s not translated but there is little commentary as the scenes speak for themselves.

As for Skip, I briefly touched upon the role he has in Ash’s life in this meta and here is a headcanon I have about how Ash sees Skipper.

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vashak

Master manipulator Ash

I was planning to write a meta on how Shorter also saved Ash’s humanity and was indeed the first to do so (and no, I’m totally NOT under the influence of @sevenflats​’ gorgeous shorash fanart) but then I realised that the main idea I had for that meta actually overlaps with what @ash-in-the-rye​ inspired me to write about power relations in Banana Fish.

Content/trigger warning: This meta discusses child sexual abuse.

All his life Ash fought against people who sought to dominate him for his beauty, intelligence and skills. While the odds were always in favour of his opponents who had resources he didn’t have, Ash made use of the very same qualities they were after to fight back. He tipped off the power balance to his favour by pretending to play the part they expected him to and caught them unawares. 

How did Ash learn to do that? Well, in the worst possible way. When he was repeatedly raped by his baseball coach in Cape Cod, he killed him to put an end to what his abuser was doing to him because the adults around him couldn’t. According to James, the guy thought he didn’t have to kill Ash like the other kids because he was paying him money. So here’s the thing. And this is really difficult to think about, let alone to put into words. Ash was only 8 years old and he knew this. He knew the money was keeping him alive. That’s why James, the genius that he is, suggested that Ash ask the guy for money in the first place. Ash also knew that as long as money was involved, the abuse would continue and there would be no way out. By then, he must have observed the guy many times and learned his routine. So one day, he took his father’s gun. 

It’s shocking to think that an 8-year-old would commit premeditated murder. The fact of the matter is that when the adults around him who should have protected him failed to do so, Ash took matters into his own hands. And he learned something from this experience: how to turn his vulnerability into an advantage.

That’s a really interesting meta 🙏 Yeah, Ash really knew how he had to act to get what he wants and I still remember how shocked I was when I first read “Angel Eyes” because he seemed so cold about manipulating people. But I guess that’s the only way he saw in order to get revenge on those who wronged him: Leading them on and using them.

Eiji really had been an important person to Ash in the main story and without him, he probably really would have turned into a devil. But Shorter was very important, too. He was the first one to call him out on the way he acts and probably was his first friend. If it hadn’t been for him, we wouldn’t have gotten the Ash we saw at the beginning of Bf and maybe, he wouldn’t even have been able to bond with Eiji like that (putting it like that, it sounds as if Shorter was like a spiritual wingman 😂)

What I always found and still find hard to imagine is Ash killing the coach on purpose when he was 8 years old, though.

Like, I never thought that he knew where to find that gun but rather found it by accident. What I also could never imagine is him holding the gun in his hands, thinking: “I’m gonna kill him.” and plans everything out. I thought it may have been something along the lines of: “I won’t let him hurt me anymore” and that he just wanted to scare him with pointing the gun at him the next time he tried to do something to him. And then things just escalated and Ash just pulled the trigger out of fear, killing him.

But I also can’t hold it against him if he really intended to kill him from the start because, like you said, the adults failed to protect him, and maybe his 8 year old self didn’t see any other way to make it stop.

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cosmicjoke

@ash-in-the-rye I agree with you regarding Ash not killing his baseball coach on purpose, in the sense that Ash, at eight years old, was too young to fully grasp the concept of death.  Even if Ash purposefully took the gun to the coach’s house with the intention of shooting him, there was no way he could have understood what taking such an action actually meant, or understood in any, concrete terms, the true consequences of it.  But you can be sure, once he pulled that trigger, it caused irrevocable damage to both his mental and emotional state.  Two things which had already been damaged beyond repair by the abuse he’d been repeatedly subjected to.  Think about this for a second.  An eight year old little boy, who’s own father treated him as if he didn’t want him, who told his son to pay his abuser money, instead of going over to that sick bastards house and doing what any decent parent would have done and killing him himself, letting the abuse go on for who knows how long, until finally Ash couldn’t take it anymore and was forced into taking care of it himself, forced into committing murder at the age of eight.

Truly, this is actually one of the most tragic things to happen to Ash, as it’s this moment when he fully breaks from the innocence of childhood, and forever alters the course of his life.  A tragedy compounded by the fact that it was entirely due to the failure of the adults around him who were meant to protect him.  His father, and the police.

@cosmicjoke I always had the feeling that it was half purpose and half coincidence. Like, I find it really hard to imagine that an eight year old went through the house, specifically searching for his father’s gun because he planned to kill his abuser with it.

I rather always thought that he found it by accident, maybe as he was playing all on his own in his father’s house, the gun being left unguarded. And Ash knew. He knew what this weapon is for. Knew that it can kill, knew that it’s even supposed to, but he also knew that it can be used for self defense. All the horror he experienced as he had been raped by the coach started to replay in his mind and without giving much thought to it, he just took it with him.

His father didn’t notice that his gun was gone, that it was now in the posession of his eight year old son, that out of desperation and fear, Ash decided to take matters in his own hands if neither his father nor even the police were showing signs of wanting to protect him.

And then once again, the coach took him to his home. Ash couldn’t make a scene, couldn’t refuse because he already learned when having been taken to the police that no one would believe him anyway, that the coach will always be seen as the nice guy and a hero.

Of course, we would think of it differently and outright potest, searching for help from others but this is a eight year old we talk about here. A eight year old who was already labelled unreliable and was told by his own father, a parental figure he trusted, that he just should keep quiet without fighting back. That was exactly what he was doing, may it have been because he just followed his father’s “advise” like any kid would probably do or because the coach had told him what happens if he ever started to protest.

That’s why this last time was no different than the other times. He took him home, not even bothering to lock the door because Ash wouldn’t try to run away anyway. He guided Ash to his bed and began to take off his clothes, but before he could do anything else, just when he was close enough, Ash pulled out the gun and threatened him. He didn’t pull the trigger immediately, he didn’t intend to kill, he just wanted him to fear for his life, to show him that he’s now in control and is able to defend himself on his own. He just wanted for it to stop.

But the coach just laughed. He was laughing at him and his attempt to frighten him. In his life, he had see much worse than a eight year old holding a gun and pointing it at him. He wasn’t afraid in the slightest. Ash’s plan had failed and what was even worse, he had fought back. There was no way he would ever leave that house alive again. Of course, the coach tried to take that gun away from him as he jumped on him, wanted it out of the way befeore he’d do much more terrible things to him than he already did before.

Maybe Ash pulled the trigger out of fear in that moment, maybe it was pulled accidently as both tried to get their hands on it. Either way, the gun went off and the man suddenly went stiff and half slided off the bed, dead.

And Ash could just stare. Stare at what he had just done, stare at the dead body in front of him. The horrors he had been living through had finally come to an end, but at the same time, even crueler horrors were awaiting him.

This is basically how I always imagined it to have been like. I just can’t imagine a eight year old intending and planning to kill someone. To frighten, yes. But never to intentionally kill.

@ash-in-the-rye That scenario you played out here sounds extremely plausible to me.  I agree too that it seems unlikely that Ash really, truly intended to kill the coach.  We have to remember as well that Ash, before this point, had never committed a single act of violence in his life.  He was a total innocent, who’d been subjected to the most awful thing a child can be, but he himself had never done anything remotely criminal at that point.  

I think what you suggest here, that Ash found his father’s gun, likely by accident, is the most likely scenario.  Ash even says to Eiji “I found my father’s gun.”  Which suggests he hadn’t been actively looking for it.  But once he did find it, a plan formed in his head for how to make the abuse stop, and I think what you said here, about just wanting to threaten the coach and scare him into stopping, sounds extremely likely.  Ash, at that point, because he was so young and didn’t have any experience with guns, couldn’t have truly understood what a gun could do, or, again, what death actually, really was.  Children that age don’t have a complete grasp or understanding on the concept of death.  They may know that people and animals can die, but a full understanding of what that means will allude them.  So even if Ash had planned on shooting his coach, it wasn’t an act of premeditated murder, for one because it was the only means he had of defending himself at that point, so entirely it was an act of self-defense, and two, because he couldn’t have fully understood the consequences of his own actions.  

But the scene you laid out here, with Ash pulling out the gun and brandishing it in hopes that the coach would stop, seems more plausible still.  Ash didn’t willingly go to the coach’s home.  The coach had been preying on him for a while at that point, taking him to his house to rape him, and as you pointed out, Ash had no recourse to resist him.  The adults in his life had utterly failed in protecting him, and an eight year old child would have absolutely zero chance of physically overpowering a full grown man.  He wouldn’t have had a choice but to go with him.  Ash had the gun with him at that point because he knew what was going to happen.  He knew the coach would come for him.  So he’d probably hidden the gun away in his clothes before leaving the house that day, with some vague notion to use it.  And it’s a truly heartbreaking scenario, for all the reasons you spoke of.  That the coach, because he was an ex-soldier, would have simply laughed at a little boy threatening him with a gun, because he’d faced off against obviously much more viable threats and survived.  Because Ash had been completely unable, up to that point, to fight back or defend himself, and had been completely helpless against this man and what he was doing to him.  Because Ash had never been able to defend himself before.  I’m certain, like you played out here, that the coach probably attempted to take the gun away from Ash, thinking there was no way a small child would ever actually be able to pull the trigger, and either in that moment, Ash panicked and did just that, or in the ensuing struggle, the gun went off

Either way, Ash was entirely innocent in this situation, and was only desperately trying to, as you said, make what had been happening to him for so long just finally stop.  The awful tragedy of it all is that, it in the end only lead to even greater horrors for him, and horribly, through no fault of his own.

@ash-in-the-rye​ & @cosmicjoke​, I’ll take your version any day over mine, but let me explain why I thought it was premeditated murder.

In the Japanese version, Ash explicitly says ‘when I shot him dead’, meaning the baseball coach. Also, Ash never says he found his father’s gun or that he ‘came back’. I don’t know why they added that sentence in the English version. The speech bubble where Ash says “When I came back one day and shot him with the gun I found, I cried. Y-you know why?” merely contains this in Japanese:

そいつを撃ち殺した時――― オレは泣いた
When I shot him dead... I cried.

But then, Ash never defended himself or gave any pretext about killing as far as I remember. For him, there can’t be any excuse for killing. He always took full responsibility for every single one of the killings he had to take part in with brutal honesty. So here, he might just be an unreliable narrator and perhaps the whole thing was indeed an accident like you describe.

And when James tells Max and the others about what happened in Cape Cod when Ash was little, he doesn’t mention anything about Ash killing the baseball coach by accident. On the contrary, it was the way James told the story that first made me think that Ash had killed him deliberately and had even planned it. And I remember finding that thought very depressing, let alone way over the top.

I did have a hard time writing that meta. I was very embarrassed to even think that Ash at that tender age could actually do that (oh, he was more than justified but that’s another story). It was difficult putting it into words. But I think what strengthened my interpretation of the incident being premeditated murder is this repeated cycle of Ash learning to turn his weaknesses into his advantage throughout the story. I thought that that incident marked the first time Ash realized how manipulating the image others had of him could come in handy to get out of a difficult situation and even save his life.

So yeah, the way you two described so elaborately how it could be a combination of self-defense and accident sounds very plausible indeed. I think I’ll go with that.

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