Banana Fish

Episode 24

Banana Fish begins its 30-minute finale with a bang, finishing off the cliffhanger of Dino Golzine's not-quite-death at the hands of Colonel Foxx. The final confrontation of Ash, Sing, and Blanca vs. these baddies takes up the first half of this extra-long episode, but somehow manages to be the least interesting part of it. Max and Jessica reunite, with all the information about the secret child sex ring ready to be released to the press. Ash sacrifices the briefcase full of Banana Fish secrets to save Sing's life. Golzine survives just long enough to kill Foxx, and then succumbs to his own wounds or might even deliberately jump to his death. The animation isn't clear on this; he moves like he falls, but he seems far enough away from the edge that he had to have jumped. Either way, he gets a weirdly tranquil ending for the man responsible for all of Ash's misery, but I guess it's supposed to show how Ash still has conflicted feelings about the man who "raised" him even after everything that's happened.

What's most interesting is what happens afterwards in the denouement for all the surviving characters. Even knowing some spoilers for who lives and who dies, I was surprised by much of what followed. Yut Lung's potential redemption was heartening for me as someone who has always enjoyed his character and felt he showed the potential to go the same way as Ash if he ever found his own Eiji. So it's all the more disheartening that Ash refuses to see the same for himself, believing that he will only destroy Eiji's life and must be separated from him. As he tells Blanca that he was right, you can tell that Blanca, who came around on Ash's relationship with Eiji by the end, is biting his tongue. It's Sing who finally confronts him, giving him the letter that finally convinces Ash otherwise—written by Eiji himself, the only person who could truly get through to him.

The way that Hiroko Utsumi directs these letter scenes is cool, switching up the art style for crayon-style memories of Ash and Eiji together, accompanied by Eiji's own words. It comes alive on the page, giving us a direct window into Ash's thoughts as he reads. As he gets further in the letter, Ash decides he belongs with Eiji after all and starts racing toward the airport—only to be stabbed by Lao, waiting in the shadows. It's the one time Ash lets his guard down, thinking everything is over and he can leave for a new life with Eiji in Japan. He ends up paying for that "mistake," his one fleeting moment of innocence and hope, with his life. It lends a needlessly sad irony to Eiji's promise that he's not saying goodbye to Ash for good.

I should state first off that I don't have a problem with tragic endings. Many of my favorite anime end with the death of the main character or otherwise upsetting final twists, and many of my most beloved anime moments are heart-rending character deaths. Many series with similar plots to Banana Fish—where decent people get twisted up into the worlds of organized crime—end with the death or total corruption of the main character as we watch them fall from grace. That being said, this ending mostly just contorted Banana Fish's intended themes.

Aslan Jade Calenreese is not Michael Corleone. He didn't enter the world of the mob willingly; he was forced into it as a child, a victim of trafficking and rape. The overall arc of Banana Fish hasn't been focused on his corruption, but his redemption—his connection with Eiji made him a better person and offered him a way out of this tragic hand that's been dealt to him, and Eiji also sees the infinite potential within Ash to be more than a mobster. We see other sympathetic characters realize this about Ash as he begins to change—that it isn't his destiny to become another casualty of the criminal world, and he isn't doomed to be punished for his past. So why does the story of Banana Fish continually deny him that closure? Why does his past literally track him down and murder him just as he's about to leave it behind forever? If Banana Fish wanted to tell that story, it should've given us a character who was more culpable than Ash, haunted by his own misdeeds rather than what others did to him. Instead, it just feels like a hollow betrayal of the story's previous appeals to emotion.

For a story that's supposed to be about how someone can heal from their abuse instead of letting it define them, we never actually get to see that healing happen. Ash loses out on his second chance because of a past mistake, but which mistake was it, and what are the consequences supposed to be mean? Was it mercy-killing his best friend in the first place or never revealing the truth behind this tragic situation to Lao? Really, Sing would be the one responsible for not sharing the truth of Shorter's death with his vengeful underlings. (You'd think he would've tried that episodes ago when it was tearing apart his group.) So Banana Fish's tragic twist ending is undone by characters not using their words when they get multiple opportunities to do so, and it seems clear that just spelling things out would solve half of their problems.

That's what makes the writing in Banana Fish feel so juvenile at times, the kind of melodrama that confuses bleak twists of fate for depth. Darkness and angst aren't inherently more adult than light and hopefulness. Banana Fish would be more meaningful if Ash was given a happier ending. If the story was meant to evoke a sense of unfair gritty realism, then it should have been more realistic and less pulpy in the buildup. Ultimately, Banana Fish struck me as a relic that keeps good company with most of the sensationalist queer media of its time. Even more positive depictions of gay men from this era can feel dated and problematic to modern audiences, so it's hardly a hot take to say that a story where most queer men are depicted as child molesters and its pure central romance is never made explicit hasn't aged super-well. That's not even going into the way women are treated as disposable cannon fodder, another BL trope that's thankfully lessened with time. (Jessica's mostly an exception, but she still gets gang-raped offscreen purely as a backdrop to Ash's trauma.)

In the end, I'm left seeking what value Banana Fish might hold for modern audiences, given that its aesthetic seems so out of step with the times we live in now. It's clear that despite its flaws, the series still has a passionate fandom. I think what makes Banana Fish so valuable for many fans is the way that Ash gives voice to the ways that sexual assault affects people. Even if the narrative and visual framing undermine its themes, Ash's characterization and Eiji's emotional support speaks directly to the heart of its creator and many ardent viewers. It's also visceral and easy to understand for those who might want a straightforward story instead of a more complex allegory like Penguindrum, which is still my go-to recommendation for an anime about recovering from sexual abuse and childhood trauma. These elements redeem Banana Fish overall, even if the trappings that surround them can be off-putting.

The biggest problem with Banana Fish is that so many different aspects of its narrative are at war with each other. There's a form vs. content issue where the story about a rape victim's recovery told from his perspective (content) is undermined by a visual gaze that objectifies him (form). The show's fixation on shocking plot twists can also undermine its characters' emotional journeys and its messages about the redemptive power of love for victims of trauma. While there are certainly fans out there who love Banana Fish unconditionally, for me it stands as a good case study for how you can strongly dislike parts of a work without hating the sum result. There's a lot to value in this story, even if it doesn't quite come together in the end.

Studio MAPPA clearly pulled out all the stops for this final episode. It includes some of the series' most stunning uses of color and visual texture, along with its best music placement—a place where Banana Fish has seriously struggled in the past. I mostly like its score, but not the way it's often threatened to overpower the narrative. Thankfully, it strikes all the right chords this time. The soft hues of the episode's second half really hit home how the characters' lives have settled over time, making that final gut-punch all the more wrenching. Even if I didn't love every adaptive decision she made, it's clear that Utsumi treated this material with tender loving care.

All the same, it's unfortunate that this adaptation is so slavishly faithful. I wish Utsumi had been able to truly bring the story into the modern day, not just in terms of the technology and setting but also by sanding off its more dated edges. At the same time, this lavish production is the perfect way to reassess this story in 2018, so it can get the attention it desperately needs from more modern viewers. Banana Fish's flaws are much more obvious than they were when the manga was first published, but we wouldn't be where we are now without these earlier stories to pave the way.

Rating: B

Banana Fish is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

Rose is a Ph.D. student in musicology, who recently released a book about the music of Cowboy Bebop. You can also follow her on Twitter.