"My Soul Is Always With You"
- Jan 13, 2021
- 5 min read
I am currently experiencing the feeling of having my life ruined by a TikTok challenge, and I simply cannot stop crying...But it was magnificent.
Chase and I always have a show we watch together when James is busy or not home.- just something for us to enjoy without James missing anything from the series we watch together. That was how we watched Haikyu!! and Yuri!!! On Ice, innocent enough right? Well, it was until Chase saw a TikTok challenge about an anime called Banana Fish. The name was funny and I thought it would be silly and light hearted with maybe a couple sad scenes at the end. Maybe about a couple struggling to keep going? Or maybe a single beloved character dies...whatever I thought, I was definitely wrong. On all accounts was I wrong- it was not light hearted, it was not a romance, it was not something to be taken as lightly as I did. I learned my lesson the hard way.
Very dramatic, I know, but I don't think I could possibly give a higher praise to a show. This show was beautifully crafted. The story was compelling and layered with hard topics that nobody wants to face, the art was incredibly well done and hyper realistic at times, the score pulled at you, making you feel the heart break through and through, and the voice actors gave their absolute all. This was hands down a master piece and one of the best shows (not even exclusively anime) I have ever seen. I feel this so strongly that I will even give a little behind the scenes fact about how I run this blog. Since returning from my hiatus, all of the articles you read are written ahead of time by just under a week. I write them so close because I need them to remain relevant, but it's still far enough away from the day-of that I'm not scrambling. However, I am writing this article over two weeks in advance. Not only that, but I'm writing it less than an hour after finishing the show itself. So, ignore the echoes of my cries in the distance and let's get into it.
Banana Fish was originally a manga series written and illustrated by Akimi Yoshida. Who at this moment I would like to say a huge "thank you" to. Thank you for your bravery to write this story...The series was originally released from 1985 to 1994 as a monthly feature in a manga magazine and was later collected into a 19 volume stand alone series. For reasons beyond me, its genre was labelled as shojo. This makes absolutely zero sense and after a lot of investigation into it, I can't find anything to back it. My theory is that since it was a female author and artist, they simply assumed what she would do. Or maybe they knew and just didn't care. Either way, I cannot in good conscience call it that. Luckily when it reached North America its genre was revised to seinen. This is a genre we have not talked about here, mainly because it is often mixed up with shonen, but basically this subgenre boils down to a "young adult male series". A huge jump from shojo, which is usually defined as a "young adult women series" (typically a romance). Now, I don't agree with this genre either, but it is certainly better than trying to pass this off as a shojo. The fact of the matter is that this manga had an almost equally split audience between male and female. You don't see that often, but then again, Banana Fish is nothing like I've ever seen.
Fun Fact: Even when it was labelled a shojo, it won the #1 spot in the "Top 50 Manga" polled by Comic Link in 1998. It greatly troubles me that that was the only award the manga won. On top of that, the anime adaptation, which is what we are talking about today, only won one award as well- the Fan Award at the 2019 Tokyo Anime Award Festival. A high honor, but honestly I wish it would have won more, because it would have meant more recognition. The 24 episode anime adaptation aired in 2018 and honestly I have never heard a peep of it. If it wasn't for Chase finding it on TikTok, I'm not sure I ever would have. Which is unfortunate and why I am sharing this heart breaking tale with all of you.
So, what's the actual story?! Get to the point Allison! Oh, hiiii, peanut gallery, I'm so glad you could join us! Impatient as ever I see, but fine. The story follows young New York gang leader, Ash Lynx, who meets a young Japanese photography assistant, Eiji Okumura. Ash finds him self in the middle of a war much bigger than himself while simultaneously finding his humanity again with his new friend Eiji. Though this is a master piece, I will not advise everyone to watch it without knowing the trigger warnings. This show does not pull any punches when addressing serious topics such as: child molestation and prostitution, rape, drug use, gang violence, murder, conspiracies of our government, and so on. Ash Lynx serves as our anti-hero who will stop at nothing to bring down the villain's, who not only treat human life like profitable garbage, but are also the ones that made him into the person he is. And Eiji serves as a beacon of innocence calling Ash home. But with the topics I listed above, you have to know that this story isn't made for happy endings and things do not always go to plan. Gang members in a war don't have a long life expectancy...knowing that doesn't help much though.
This story is tragic and resonates a little stronger because of the state of our world today. I know these problems were present in the 80's when this story was created, but after the last year the world has seen, it feels wildly ahead of its time. If the triggers I described don't keep you from it, I highly recommend you watch Banana Fish. It's devastatingly beautiful and I imagine it will stay with me (and whoever else watches it) for a long time. I can shamelessly say that this is hands-down one of my favorite animes of all time- and I don't see that ever changing, to be honest. I am currently searching for the manga because I would love to compare the anime to its original form (and also because I apparently like to cause myself pain). Without spoilers, a character says at the end of the show, "My soul is always with you", I would just like to respond: I will carry all of your souls with me, thank you.
Thank you for joining me for this overly emotional review here on Nerdom. This anime has changed me and I hope it gets the chance to change you too. On a lighter note, I hope you have a wonderful week, I will be back on Sunday with The Mess! Until then, stay safe, stay fierce, stay loving, stay nerdy and stay messy otaku.
Bonus picture of Allison & Chase crying after the conclusion of Banana Fish:
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