TV Anime 'Banana Fish' Announces Additional Cast Members

The official website for the upcoming Banana Fish TV anime has announced additional cast members, along with a new key visual and preview. Survive Said The Prophet will perform first opening theme song "found & lost." The anime will broadcast on Thursdays 1:55 a.m. via noitaminA timeslot starting July 6. Amazon Prime Video will also stream the anime in Japan and worldwide.

Cast
Shorter Wong: Makoto Furukawa (One Punch Man)
Frederick Arthur: Yoshimasa Hosoya (the Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan (TV) series)
Shuishi Ibe: Shinji Kawada (Hisone to Maso-tan)
Yut-Lung Li (Jusis): Jun Fukuyama (the Nanatsu no Taizai series)
Blanca: Toshiyuki Morikawa (Black Clover)

First two episodes will be pre-screened via an event on June 30. Yuuma Uchida (Aslan Jade Callenreese) and Kenji Nojima (Eiji Okumura) will appear for a talk show.

PV

Note: The video is region-locked; click here for an alternative link.

Source: Moca News

Why it is still not tagged as shounen ai ?

Pretty misleading for people.

What is really comforting is that the director of animation is someone very competent as well as the co-director of animation. So there's a good reason to rejoice.

*sight*
Why this is the first comment? I'm really tired of it… Continue to delude yourself in your illusions…



Anyway, the trailer is promising, showing a great art and character design.

Really hyped for the anime!

But Fukuyama Jun's character's name isn't Jusis. It's Yut-Lung or Yau-Si.

Oh my gosh I'm super hyped!!! This 2nd PV looks awesomeeee AND LOOK AT THAT CAST!!! even with Hosoya as the bad guy omgggg

Dont tell that to me im just stating what i saw, MAL need to update their tags, and not only here, but with many others too.

And what did you see ?
A kiss between the two leads I guess? Are all works with two girls kissing each other once in a very specific situation are GL?

I have read the manga and I love BL, but this is not BL. I wouldn't mind if it was a BL, I would even love it, but it is not the case.

Please, not 12 episodes. It deserves full adaptation at once.

Thank you very much for the correction. I just saw the Japanese wiki listing both his real name and his name in America: 李月龍（リー・ユエルン）: アメリカ名はユーシス. The official site and Twitter only listed in his English (America) name, so I just listed it. I just fixed it to mention both.
It has already been announced previously that it will be 2 cours.

Sorry, I didn't read previous informations. Thank you for the answer.

You're welcome :) And thank you for the correction.
Yeah, his name is really tricky, but in the manga he was mostly Yut-Lung.

@lady_freyja

So this is not BL \ Yaoi-bait?

Still very confused... is this anime about BL or not. The answer might change whether I watch it or not.

This is not a BL.
And is not a fan-service manga. The manga is one of the most renowned shōjo manga ever for its plot and characters, similar to Rose of Versailles or else. Reducing it to a "something-bait" is crazy.


But yes, the two leads have a very strong relationship. Fujoshi will call that a "bromance" and will find it magnificent or whatever.
Yes there is one kiss for a plot reason. You can see fan-service here I guess, since there was probably other ways to do what it was done with that kiss.
Yes, there is bad guys who love to rape young boys.

But this manga is not a romance-heavy work. If you ignore the "bromance" thing there is no romance in it. This manga is about a strong plot and strong character development, not about fan-service, even if yes, it does have some.



I really don't understand why people freak out so much about that work.


After that, I speak about the manga, maybe the studio have decided to please fujoshi, it's not impossible.

MAPPA trying to wipe out the fujoshis wallets again. Nothing new.



For once I agree with Swagernator.

@lady_freyja So, if I understand correctly, in this context, this manga is a "male" version of the works about romantic friendship between the girls? Of course, I do not expect two guys will be gently looking into each other's eyes or sleeping in the same bed, but I'm wondering why so many people expect the canonical BL from this show.

lol what does this statement even mean.

Anyway, for whatever dumb reason, I was expecting something related to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananafish_Magazine
Color me disappointed.

@RobertBobert
"Romantic Friendship" might be a word here, the relationship is strong enough for seeing it both as a friendship or as a love. I'm sure it was what the author wanted and I find judicious : fujoshi who want to see beautiful love will see it, people who aren't interested in that sort of thing will see strong friendship.

Personally, even if I love BL and thus can be called a "fujoshi", I'm not into shipping, thus here I see just a really strong friendship.


And yes, I dunno why people expect genuine BL out of this work, and it really annoy me.
That's why I should stay away from that topic, it will be better for my moral.
Sorry if I sounded aggressive to you. Swagernator's message really annoyed me.

I agree with @lady_freyja. There is a little BL in this but it isn't a BL title. This is hardboiled crime/mafia/gang story over everything else. Think like the shoujo version of Sanctuary.

@lady_freyja Lol, you were not aggressive. Moreover, I myself often meet with such discussions around PriPri or Amanchu, when the author sates a strong friendship between the characters with strong homoerotic or near-love symbolism.

But if in my case it's an ambiguous Class S, then I'm interested in what should symbolize such a relationship between the two men.

Oh, yet another Mappa yaoi anime. Gonna avoid like it never existed. One Gomi on ICE was enough for me.

mh i dont like the vibe of the pv and the mood(also visually), i'll check the next pv

Ah, this must be popular here. Just like Yaoi on Ice.

Tbqh, it seems a bit of a cop out to have a very romantic natured work and then be like... it was such strong friendship.

I think it annoys me because there's usually this undertone of m/m or f/f relationships being impure if they're romantic in nature, but it's very rare to see an m/f relationship end on a note of 'we're soulmates not lovers we cannot be constricted by romance' etc etc

Anyway gripes aside, I like Banana Fish and I'm interested to see it animated. But unless the story is changed (which we can't possibly know yet) it shouldn't get a shounen ai tag and I'm not sure why people would argue it should.

PV is perfect and I'm loving OP plus that more cast. I'm extra hyped can't wait.

Never change MAL..never change...

Banana Fish is about as opposite from YOI/Free! as it gets, they are completely different genres. The only "BL" in this show is the fact that some antagonists are child rapists who enjoy raping little boys...and these antagonists are not pretty boys but fat old men.

If I were to compare, Banana Fish is more similar to something like 91 Days with a male heavy cast due to the nature of the show (gangs and mafia). 91 Days also had lots of fangirls who see the friendship as romance, but it is not canonically a romance. I don't personally see Ash and Eiji's friendship as romance in the original manga because Eiji kind of feels like a plot device half the time, but with Utsumi as director there may be a lot more focus on them as she said in interviews that she really wanted to bring out their relationship.

Ash's character design still doesn't sit well with me for some reason, too skinny perhaps. xD

But otherwise, this is shaping up to look pretty decent. Two cours... oh man, I hope it turns out good and do the manga justice~

How many episodes are 12 episodes or 24 episodes?!🤔

2-cour (24 episodes) I'm pretty sure it's a consecutive, not split cour.

PV still doesn't convince me too much but eh, I guess it looks promising enough? I dunno.

This is my most hyped new series outside of Grand Blue this summer.

Also, hell yeah Survive Said the Prophet ! Thats a nice surprise.

PV looks good & it's going to be 2 cours!!

I'm hyped!!

The series literally comes out and says that Eiji and Ash are romantically in love with one another, though? As in, saying they feel the same way towards one another that lovers do. I don't know how so many people overlook or misinterpret that, but there you go.

OP2: "FREEDOM" by BLUE ENCOUNT
https://www.animatetimes.com/news/details.php?id=1536632015