Banana Fish 4
Posted: February 3, 2009 Filed under: Banana Fish 5 Comments »Wow. Just… wow.
I really, really liked the scene in the beginning where the assassins bust in on them. I like the action scenes in this series a lot, actually. They’re far better than some of the more violent and action-packed scenes in most other series. There’s a lot of negotiation going in in some cases, some outsmarting, and in this case, some family bonding. I kind of wonder if we will see that character again.
And then, we must move from Massachusetts to California. One thing I was a little disappointed by was that I was cheated out of a “roadtrip across America” storyline, a type of story I’m very fond of. There’s still time for the entire series to be trots to different locales in America, though. Even if that’s not how things pan out, I guess I can’t complain too much… it is a manga, not intended for an American audience that would be very familiar with the different side trips and roadside rests and all. Notably, the best instances of that type of story are by non-native Americans or expats. There are certainly others that are quite good, though.
So we cut right from Cape Cod to Los Angeles. Much backstabbing occurrs, though the backstabbing is not particularly willful on the part of the closest member of the team. The mob has no problem stabbing backs, though, which is where the primary betrayal is happening.
We also get some… implications about Ibe and Eiji. Both are different than what they advertise themselves to be job-wise, but I have to say that the situation between the two was not what I expected. I suspect Ibe is not the jealous type, but that they even have a relationship like that, however lightly implied (Eiji… might not know how Ibe feels?), is kind of unexpected. We can only hope this doesn’t complicate things between Ash and Eiji.
I also liked Max Lobo’s wife and kid. Any scene with the three of them in it was pretty funny. She also wasn’t at all what I expected.
Ibe and eiji have.. what? Did I miss something? Also, I guess I’m the only one who just sees Ash and Eiji as really close friends? XD
Suzu: The manga just implies so hard that there’s more going on between the two. Where I’m at, though, I would say that Eiji and Ash are just really close friends. The thing I was talking about between Eiji and Ibe was that neither was actually a reporter, and that Ibe had gotten into photography when he realized he wanted to photograph Eiji. There was also the whole thing about how he wanted Eiji to keep going and support him after his accident and all that… it could be read a few ways.
…. Okay, maybe I’m just tired of it and thus ignoring the implied stuff. But I wouldn’t behave differently if I found a friend like that.
Can’t there be a really great friendship between men without anyone thinking they’re toghether or in love?
There can be, and there are plenty of good series where two boys are just that. There are even plenty of series for girls where there are no implications between two male friends. Believe me, I’m not one to read into invisible subtexts. Akimi Yoshida definitely wrote Banana Fish with the implied relationships in mind, because the subtexts between the characters are just too heavy for me to believe otherwise. It can be read both ways, though.
I agree that Akimi Yoshida deliberately wrote in that subtext, and deliberately made it possible to read it both ways. It’s the ambiguity which makes it interesting. The nature of the relationship is somewhat clarified in the epilogue.