r/BananaFish

I’m working on my Banana Fish tattoo design and I’m wanting it to be two animals, one for Ash and one for Eiji, circling each other around my elbow yin yang style. Always chasing, never touching. Ash could obviously be a lynx or snow leopard. But what should I make Eiji? What makes the most sense?

I was never one of those people who hated him, I did have some sympathy for his situation, but I sidelined him in my head and never gave his character much thought. I just finished rewatching it almost a year later, and I appreciate him so much more.

I don’t know how I missed such huge parts of his character, because a lot of it was quite literally spelled out, but I feel his envy for Ash so deeply.

I think my perspective has changed so drastically because when I first watched it, I didn’t understand where he was coming from, because I hadn’t been through it myself. Pure loneliness. I was a lot more like Ash. I had good friends that I could rely on, I even had an Eiji, if you will. But now, I’m truly and utterly alone and it’s the most awful feeling I’ve ever experienced.

I think I watched Banana fish around September of last year, so almost a year ago. It got me so hard the first time, I cried so much and the story really touched my heart. When the dub came out and it was on Netflix, I decided to rewatch watch it as I had wanted to for a while and the dub seemed like the perfect excuse to. I finished it less than 5 minutes ago and I started crying less than 10 minutes into the last episode because I knew what was going to happen. I think I’ll make a post once I can organise my thoughts, but right now I’m just fucked up over this. I’ve never been through anything remotely similar to any of the characters, but I haven’t had the easiest life and I resonate with these characters so deeply. This show means so much to me, I will never forget it until my dying breath. I want to slap and hug the author at the same time. Idk what the point of this post is, but I just needed to share my feelings so I don’t cry for the rest of the day.

I always wondered if banana fish could be based in reality. Now, I believe it could be.

So I started watching Banana Fish because I have heard SO much about it everywhere. Like people constantly say it's one of the most heartbreaking anime ever, that it will destroy you emotionally, make you cry, break your heart, etc. And honestly... I'm 7 episodes in and I'm not feeling it. 😭 I went into it specifically wanting something heartbreaking and relationship-focused. I wanted to actually get attached to the characters and their relationship, so that when something happens to them, I would genuinely care and get emotional. But so far, I feel like I'm watching mafia, crime, drugs, kidnapping, conspiracy, mafia, more mafia. There is just so much going on, and honestly it feels complicated. It's not exactly a relaxing watch (not that I was looking for something relaxing), but I was expecting the emotional/relationship side to be much more prominent.

And I'm not saying the characters are bad or anything. It's just that after 7 episodes, I'm still not at the point where I'm thinking, “Oh my god, I care about these people so much.” And that's making it really hard for me to understand why everyone says this anime will absolutely destroy me. For comparison, I watched Violet Evergarden and I was crying basically every episode because I actually cared about what was happening with the characters. With Banana Fish, I'm basically watching because I've already watched 7 episodes and now I feel obligated to finish it lol.

So for people who have watched it:

Should I give Banana Fish more time? Does the relationship/emotional side become significantly more prominent later, or is the mafia/crime storyline basically going to remain the main focus? Please don't spoil anything past episode 7. I just want to know whether it's worth continuing based on what I'm looking for. Because I genuinely don't know whether I should keep going or just accept that this one isn't for me.

Am i the only one who got banana fish on their netflix now but its only Japanese and the French dub?? Anyone know how to fix this?

Years ago I started writing an elaborate fanfiction for BF (which back then, I never posted lol) to deal with the absolute trauma and grief this series had given me. Recently I've been revising it, and editing it more, (to post it belatedly) and I reached a specific chapter I wrote back then. (following anime timeline)

Context: Ash survived, and he is now temporarlily staying With Max, Jessica and Michael in LA. Eiji came to visit during Christmas, and he gave Ash a notebook to put whatever comes to his mind in.
After weeks pass, slowly more personal things enter the notebook. Eventually one night, he is up late with Eiji sleeping next to him, and he writes a letter to Griffin.

I liked how the letter came out, so I wanted to share it with you and am very curious to hear what you think, so, here it is:

Griff,

You wouldn't believe who I found.

Actually he found me. Sort of. It's a long story and you'd probably think it was funny that out of every reporter in New York I ended up with Max. I didn't think it was funny at first.

I hated him when I met him.

That part might have been unfair.

He told me what happened in Iraq.

I now know he didn't leave you.

He was looking for you.

I was wrong about him.

You were right, though. He's annoying as hell. I don't know why you liked him.

I live with him right now. Him and Jessica and Michael. You never met Michael. He's eight and he never stops talking. He keeps leaving shit in my room. I own a dinosaur now.

Don't ask.

Max kept some of your writing.

He says you thought it was bad. Some of it was.

Some of it was really good.

I remembered how much you wrote. I remembered the letters. I still remember waiting for them. I used to know when the mail came.

I found one of your notes where you reminded yourself to ask if I finished Bradbury. I did. You never got to ask me.

I read all the time now. You probably knew I would.

I write some too, I guess. Not like you. Mostly notes. Things I read. Things I want to remember. Japanese.

I'm going to Japan.

There is someone. His name is Eiji.

He's Japanese. He used to pole vault. Now he's a photographer. He has terrible survival instincts.

That's not really true. He's braver than almost anyone I know. He just does stupid shit when he thinks somebody needs him.

You would like him.

I think you would.

He stayed.

He knows everything. Or enough. More than I wanted him to. He stayed anyway.

He thinks I'm good.

I don't know what he sees.

Sometimes I think, maybe whatever he sees in me is something you put there.

You were different from me.

You were warm. You made people feel safe. You were patient. You wrote stupid poems and made hot chocolate and knew how to make a house feel like somewhere I wanted to come back to.

I'm not like that.

At least I didn't think I was.

But now Michael comes to me when he needs help with homework. Sometimes when he's scared too. Eiji falls asleep next to me like he doesn't think anything bad can happen there. Shorter trusted me. You did too.

Maybe you were all seeing something I can't.

Or maybe you're all idiots.

I hope it's the first one.

I know about the nightmares now.

I know what Banana Fish did. I didn't know then. I didn't know you were living like that.

I wish I had known.

I know I was a kid. Max keeps telling me that like it changes anything. Maybe it should.

I used to think you couldn't hear me.

Sometimes I talked anyway. Sometimes I didn't. Sometimes I got angry at you.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I got angry at you. I'm sorry I left you alone in that room more than I ever ment to, and not only because I was busy. Some days I just couldn't look at what was left of you. I'm sorry I couldn't fix you. I'm sorry I wasn't there when you died.

I know you wouldn't blame me.

That almost makes it worse.

I miss you.

I miss you so much, Griff.

I don't know if you'd be proud of me.

Max says you would.

Eiji would say that too, probably. They're both biased.

I'm trying.

I really am.

I wish you could have met Eiji.

I wish you could see me now.

I love you.

I understand that we all love Banana Fish with our whole hearts, but I'd still love to hear some of your potential criticism of the manga/anime. ​I need to rant to someone about this incredible piece of media, and I'd love to read other people's rants too! So, drop your critiques!

I'll go first: I wish we explored Eiji's​ character outside of Ash more. I have read the bonus Fly Boy, in the Sky manga and I've just been craving more explanation of Eiji! ​​​​​​​​I haven't read the manga yet, as I want to read it in physical format when I manage to find all the parts, so I can't speak on this matter there. But, upon rewatching the anime, I didn't feel like we got to know Eiji all that well. Outside of a few stray lines, we don't know much of anything about his life pre-Ash. I understand that Ash is our main character, but Eiji is so important and dear to all of us as well :')​​​​​

I'd love to hear what some of you all think of him.

I'm doing the dub rewatch (so great we finally have one... French, too!) and I've been picking out so many reasons not to like him much, even just early on. I don't hate him, far from it, and he does some amazing things, too. Just... sigh IDK. That's why I'm curious. I basically just realized it was pretty much his fault that Jennifer got shot when he decided to attempt a distraction in the restaurant with the headlights. I never picked up on this decades ago when I read the manga... it just really annoys me. He makes a lot of stupid decisions throughout.

Anyway, I can't bellieve I'm talking about BF again.

Banana Fish seriously broke me. From the very beginning I was rooting for the unstoppable main character. Then I watched as that unstoppable, unbreakable will showed a soft side. Grew a bond. I secretly celebrated when those two kissed, even if it was technically only for the sake of the task at hand. I was really rooting for Ash to finally find peace. That after this was done, he would escape with Eji and all would be right. Of course, that's not how these anime go. When you load that many scars and bits and pieces of trauma on a character, it's almost always a sign. I won't elaborate further.

But I mean seriously... of all people to do the deed, why him? Why that paranoid dumbass?

Anyways, I'm in a love-hate relationship with this anime. I love the entire thing, it's a beautiful piece of storytelling. But I hate it for ripping away my closure.

I'm on episode 18 and I'm convinced that there is something supernatural about Ash. His abilities, his charisma, and how he can pretty easily seduce anyone. Pretty much everyone is attracted to him. Is there actually something supernatural about him? Please no major spoilers.

I've known about the existence of this story for a little over a year now, and from what I understood, it was a tragedy. That's all the info I had and so I avoided it. Mostly due to that but I also didn't want to go out of my way to find the anime or manga. But to my detriment, Netflix decided to make emotional distress easy to access.

During my three days of watching, I was on edge just KNOWING either Ash or Eiji wasn't going to make it (my guess was Ash, but it was still a toss up), but by the final episode... Things are good? Sad, but they're alive! So I thought, maybe the tragic part was that they can't be together...

Fucking hell man, I let my guard down for HALF OF AN EPISODE!

Hope really can make things worse, can't it?

This whole time Ash has been surviving the most brutal shit fuckers could throw at him but now one stab wound by the last remaining enemy...

I think I understand why, but this fucking sucks. I should have listened to myself and just kept ignoring this beautifully tragic, heart wrenching story. At least then I wouldn't be crying right now.

I just needed to vent a bit. Sorry.

Watching the English dub on netflix and the subtitle track doesn't match what the voice actors are saying on most episodes. It's clearly the translation written for the Japanese audio -totally different wording, so it's distracting to read along with.

The weird part... episode 2 is a perfect match. Exact dubtitles, matches the dub script line for line. Every other episode I've watched (so far) is the sub translation.

My subtitle menu only shows "English" no English [cc] option at all. US region

Trying to figure out if this is a regional licensing thing or an incomplete delivery on Netflix's end. Since this is the first "real" English dub the show has ever gotten, I'm guessing the caption files are still being rolled out but ep 2 being correct while the rest aren't is odd