Banana Fish 2
January 28, 2009
So Ash is quite a creepy boy. His silence lands him in prison when the mob boss Dino pulls a few strings, and he gets kind of weird on his cellmate when he finds out that Max Lobo knew his brother in Vietnam and was also researching the meaning behind banana fish. Actually, this scene was unfortunate in that Ash Lynx and Max Lobo, two men with slightly silly names, exchanged their real names. Aslan Callenreese for Ash and Max’s real last name is Glenreed, which sounds like a real name, but… well, Aslan Callenreese. It’s almost as good as our friend Quillish Whammy from Death Note.
The setup for landing Ash in prison baffled me a little bit, especially since this was before the age of cellphones. How did Dino know that Marvin was going to botch things, and how did he know that things were going to play out exactly right in order to send Ash to prison? Maybe getting him arrested was actually Arthur’s doing, who… maybe could have taken advantage of the situation, and then Dino had him thrown into prison. But even Arthur setting up Ash like that is a little unbelievable. I didn’t like it any less for it, though. The whole thing was rather awesome, if not for poor Skip.
Actually, what was also unfortunate was what Ash was hit with for motive in the police station. That was really, truly unfortunate, and it made me hate Dino and Marvin a lot more.
Eiji is still around at the end of the volume, and he tries his hand at some covert gang communication. He’s not so good at it, but I suspect he’ll be around for a long time yet, so he’ll get better.
I’m really kind of wrapped up in things right now. I have no doubt that I could read the whole series in one sitting. Volume 3 has still not arrived, and I’m dying to continue.
January 28, 2009 at 5:26 am
Yeah the name Aslan is very unfortunate (I keep thinking of the damn lion). Thank god most people call him Ash.
I think Dino is so experienced in criminal workings and is so familiar with Ash (sadly) that he would know if something goes wrong or not according to plan.
Ei-chan! You’ll be shouting and squealing his name soon! ^___~!
One of the great things about this series is that the drawings get a lot better, you dont even notice it until you compare the last volume with the first and it’s a total “wow!” moment.
January 28, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Now you see what makes Banana Fish such an evil, evil read.
I said “I have so much to do today, manga has to wait”. But my hands and eyes didn’t listen. Before I knew it, I read six volumes at once.
If I recall correctly (and I might not, since my memory tends to bleed volumes together), in Volume 3 Ash does something completely insane, yet awesome, yet scary.
And yay Max Lobo! I forgot how much I love him, probably because he doesn’t appear very much in the later volumes.
January 28, 2009 at 10:05 pm
I already kind of like Eiji, and he hasn’t really done anything yet. He just… seems to fit, which is kind of weird.
Yeah, I kind of like the way the art evolves. I actually first saw the series around volume 8 or 9 years ago, and when I picked it up and started from volume one, I was really shocked by how far the art had come just from there. I’m curious to see what it looks like at the end.
January 28, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Oh man, and I just found out that my order for volume 3 got messed up, too. It’s going to be a week or so now before I can continue.
Max Lobo is a pretty cool customer. Anyone who seems to be in prison of their own free will after apparently punching out a cop in a disagreement is going to be up there for me.