The summer 18 anime season was very problematic . It was the season that was dominated by anime that contained 12/13 episodes and many of the anime unfortunately fell flat in the face either because there were either bad throwaway shows or they ended up getting crippled by the 12th/13th episode count where some of the show they had enough content of to make a 24/26 episode but set studio poor decisions making these show only ended up having the episode count that they ultimately got.
This doesn’t say that the summer 18 anime was a complete failure as it did give a couple of great shows that I liked such as Chio’s School Road, Revenue Starlight, Planet With and High Score Girl.
After looking at the countless 12/13 episode animes that summer 18 season had to offer in the charts I saw two anime that had 24 episodes and these anime were Banana Fish and Mr Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues aka the Kaiji spinoff. I obviously skipped the Kaiji spinoff as from the time of this review because I have only seen a first 4 episodes of Kaiji and I wanted to watch the whole series first before going into that show. So that leaves me with Banana Fish done by Studio Mappa.
Despite me having a negative opinion of Mappa thanks to them making a bunch of shows (Not counting Yuri on Ice) that barely don’t much substance to them aka Rage Of Bahamut Virgin Soul and Days I decided to give Banana Fish a shot just to see if they learned from the past mistakes that caused me to dislike them as a studio.
After watching all 24 episodes of Banana Fish I can say yes Mappa has kinda learned a lesson from the past mistakes but at the same time I feel Mappa at times is still playing that style over substance card.
The story follows Ash Lynch a 17-year-old man has been adopted off the streets by the head of the New York mob papa Dino as a sex toy. However, after he comes across a man left for dead in an alley, he has added a necklace with a bullet attached to it which contains a secret white powder.
Ash now has the ability to fight back against pana Dino and to possibly free himself from his grasps and this is all because what is in that bullet. While this was happening a journalist named Shunichi who come to document the gangs in New York City. He brings a cameraman assistant named Eiji to help him take pictures however he ends up getting caught in the confit between Dino and Ash and from there Ash journey towards freedom begins.
I have mixed feelings for the story of Banana Fish as it has a lot of good things in it but at the same, it has quite a lot of meh things in it which I will talk about in the bit but first let’s talk about the good things in Banana Fish’s story.
On the surface, Banana Fish has a unique setting that is very different compared to most anime these days.
Instead of being set in Japan Banana Fish is set in New York Urban style. Despite the show having a different overall setting, the series goes a solid job at establishing the New York setting as it fullest where see people doing gang/mafia activity left and right and we also see the people who are not part of the plot live they daily lives in peace. This aspect one of the stronger things in Banana Fish because it really makes the world feel alive as the viewers know that New York has a dark side where it’s filled with gangs, mafia and druggies who do these dark acts that would have been illegal.
The one thing that I really liked of Banana Fish was how it was able to show the ugly side of humanity as it does showcased a lot of acts that only the worst of people would commit such as rape, human drug experiments, gang warfare, etc. On top of the shows, nice portrayal of showing the worst of humanity comes with the shows excellent theme exploration as the show explores themes of freedom, regret, betrayal and the show does a great job at respecting its core themes and topic s
If there was one thing that Banana Fish nails at its the emotional moments. This easily the most emotionally engaging anime from 2018 period because not only they are beautifully well executed but we see the characters break down into their worst state. The best example of this happens in the second half episode (Spoiler Ahead) After Eiji gets shot and sent to the hospital room we see Ash mentally broken.
Some other great emotional moments when a character named Shorter gets drugged while Eiji couldn’t do anything about it. What really made that scene even more sadder is that both Ash and Eiji cannot cure and as a result Ash had no choice to shot him to simply end Shorter pain and as a result of Ash mentally breaks down due to the fact that he couldn’t save his one of his close friend from being drugged by the Banana Fish by Abraham.
Unfortunately, Banana Fish has problems. Lots of problems and many of these problems ended up hurting the anime.
For starters Banana Fish at various times feels like a style over substance flick as the show seems to highlight it’s visuals over storytelling at times. To Banana Fish credits it’s not as bad as something like Days or Virgin Soul but still, consider it a problem that ruins the overall writing quality in the show at times.Another problem with I had with Banana Fish that is pretty repetitive.
It was fine seeing Ash and Eiji getting kidnapped/arrested the first couple of times but after a while, it really got trying seeing one of these two characters getting kidnapped/arrested than later on getting rescued by set person. I understand that this kidnapped is meant to be part of the show theme of freedom but could they least not make happened every 2 to 4 episodes of Banana Fish.
The biggest problem with Banana Fish is without the question is the pacing. While the first four episode of Banana Fish pacing wise was good and engaging but after that pacing moves a blazing speed where it was actually hard to tell what is going on in the narrative. I understand that the show trying to adapt a 19 volume manga into a 24 episode series but I feels the episode count for this series actually does more damage to the show then it helps especially when the show starts rushing/cutting out content in the second half of the series.
At the time of this review I have not read the manga as I decided to approach it as a anime only but I can easily tell that the show, especially in the second half, is rushed as hell. If this show had 39 episodes like Jojo Part 4 and 5 then this show would have been a better experience but as it stands the pacing in Banana Fish is a mess.
Overall, I found the story of Banana Fish to be above average. It did a quite a lot of good things in it but at the same time, Banana Fish has a lot of problems story-wise that prevent it from being a well-told story. I understand this show is mainly a character driven rather than a story driven but if your pacing is inconsistent like this then it’s honestly hard for me to care about some characters which I will talk about now.
While the story ended up being above average overall the characters least the main 2 protagonists completely make it where I can somewhat forgive the pacing issues of Banana Fish.
First up we have Ash Lynx who is a former. Not gonna lie he is easily the best thing about Banana Fish. He is a very well written character who simply wants to be free from Dino’s antics. His journey was very satisfying as we see him not only to find freedom by stopping Dino’s plans but he also wants to protect Eiji from any harm caused by Dino and the villains. During his childhood years in Cape Cod, he was raped by his Little League coach, and the cops did do anything at all until Ash himself had to kill him with the gun.
He was eventually sent away from his father to live with his aunt however he soon gets captured by Golzine’s man as soon got send to Club Cod as a child sex object. Why am I telling you all this you may ask?
That’s because Ash is literally a broken person who just wanted to live a normal life and every time Ash breaks down we can see his pain and suffering he has endured throughout his life and because of these reasons, Ash is great character and he’s easily one of the best characters of 2018.
While Eiji may not as memorable as Ash he still a pretty solid character. He’s a polar opposite to Ash where he gets sucked into a mafia world being completely naive and clueless about the situations that Ash managed to drag himself into. Despite his naive attitude at first, he is willing to help Ash accomplished his goal of freedom from Dino and the rival gang.
The rest of the characters, on the other hand, were underdeveloped, and that’s the sad part because the other characters in Banana Fish could have been great but the rapid pacing leaves them totally underdeveloped where you ultimately don’t care for them. The best example of this was with Skip and Shorter.
Outside of the introduction episodes, I couldn’t care about them all that much because they didn’t enough arrive screen time thanks to the rapid pacing. Shorter’s death as much I enjoyed Ash perspective of that scene I couldn’t care on Shorter perspective as the show failed to give him a decent spotlight.
As for the villains, I thought they were one dimensional and lacked any real depth whatsoever especially Dino who is a just a typical villain who likes experiment people with drugs. Even though the villains in Banana Fish lack any depth to speak off I feel like the show does a beautiful job at making the viewer loathe them so there that.
The visuals were pretty great.
MAPPA did a good job with the character designs, background scenery for the setting of Banana Fish. The cinematography and use of urban colour palettes were very polished as it the show did a fantastic to bring key scenes from the 80s manga to live in anime in such brilliant ways.The animation is filled, consistent and nicely animated. Yes, it had a couple of shotty visuals cut moments episodes 13 in a nutshell but least it’s not as bad as something like Goblin Slayer and Tokyo Ghoul re:
I may be the notoriety here, but I found the soundtrack of Banana Fish to be underwhelming. It’s just a selection of generic mafia/gang that you all heard before in any action thriller anime.
The opening and ending themes on the other hand are awsome. Not only they songs perfectly captured action emotional thriller of Banana Fish but they so catch and memorable. They completely over-shine the mediocre soundtrack.
The voice acting in Banana Fish was outstanding. As a person who usually a dub only watcher, I was blown away of amazing and well acted the Seiyuu were. My favourite performance was hands down Yuuma Uchida. He did a wonderful portraying a broken lovable character Ash and it really makes the anime as the character struggles feel alive.
Unfortunately, Banana Fish from the time of this review hasn’t got an English Dub and as a dub fan, this hurts because this show would be perfect for a semi-cast Funimation dub thanks to its American setting, themes and tone that is way different from the typical anime that is set in Japan. I hope this show gets a dub one day done by Bangzoom Entertainment and if it does get a dub I hope Johnny Yosh Bosch would voice Ash.
Despite it’s issues I had a good time with Banana Fish. It’s a fun, emotional and engaging thrill ride that does a lot of things right. Yes the pacing and at time the writing could have been a lot better but the outstanding thematic exploration, well written main characters, brilliant production values and astounding emotional impact make up the anime shortcomings.
The show may not a masterpiece but it’s one hell of a good anime that I respect.