Private Opinion: Banana Fish Another Story

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This small side story occurs when Ash is still a child (presumably around 10-11 years old) and living under Dino´s roof. After several incidents Dino decides that military education will be more to Ash´s liking and that´s when Blanca comes to the scene.
The art is the same quality as in entire Banana Fish manga and personally I liked this author´s style very much. Story itself is bittersweet, showing not only grim sides of Ash´s growing up, but surprisingly also Blanca funny moments (yes, he has them). Characters, as always, are strong portrayed. No wonder since both Ash and Blanca are very difficult and deep ... characters.
Overall, I enjoyed this manga as well as other Banana Fish side stories which are all available online. For me solid 8/10 and you should definitely check it out.

The side stories are immensely painful. I'm not sure how I'm going to get over this pain. I know it's been a year, but I don't think I'll ever overcome Banana Fish, let alone these side stories. The emotional pain this series caused me is eternal. As you can see, I'm still suffering from this.

Angel Eyes is not only Shorter's point of view, but also his perspective on events and his sister's involvement. It was also the start of Ash and Shorter's friendship. Then we get to see a younger, more raw Ash here, and Yoshida delves deep into rape culture, which I appreciate in ... this manga. At the end, it's lovely to watch Ash genuinely happy when he's surrounded by good people like Shorter.

They led me to believe that Garden Of Light would provide me with closure, but they were mistaken; it provided me with a whole new world of grief and pain. But how do I cope when Eiji isn't looking for someone to fill the void and no one can take Ash's place? Those panels of Eiji collecting all of Ash's photos and putting them in his gallery with the title "Dawn", Ash's name, moved me to tears.

In Private Opinion, my heart will never stop bleeding for Ash. Blanca is an intriguing and complex character. He taught Ash how to defend and protect himself. I know he had a bad upbringing as well, but he had an odd way of protecting Ash.

Fly Boy In the Sky is a mesmerizing side story that establishes Eiji's character in a different realm than Banana Fish. Personally, it provided me with a new perspective on Eiji's life. Here, we get a glimpse into Eiji's school days and learn about how he came to be who he is, his hardships, and his dreams as a young boy.

Meanwhile, Ura Bananas were a source of joy for me. It makes me so glad to see Ash happy and pain-free. It's such a relief to see them happy and discussing fan messages.

This review is only for the two chapters unique to the volume, not for the extras that were also included with 19th volume of the manga.

A side story of Banana Fish, this supplement aims to give readers some more context for its less explored characters – Blanca, the assassin, and Eiji Okumura, who is less explored despite being member of the main cast.

Blanca’s chapter shows his relationship with Lynx, and his psychological evaluation of the young boy genius. The chapter dues raise an interesting point about the futility of trying to play god and artificially create human “elite”. Despite the art that’s simple but not ... what I would call stylized, I have actually enjoyed reading this chapter more than I did the main manga.

That is not the case with the second chapter, focusing on Eiji. Here, the usual style of cluttered but mostly meaningless dialogue and/or pages is in full force, and despite being merely a single chapter, I got bored of it fast. It doesn’t even bring any interesting content to tie in to the main story, but then again, Eiji always felt somewhat shoehorned to the plot to me.

Overall, those are somewhat average “gaiden” chapters, on the usual level of what you would expect of short side stories. Not exactly great on their own, but mostly enjoyable read for fans of the franchise – though again not much by their own merit but rather by being tied to a successful title.

But that is, after all, simply my… private opinion. *ba dum tss*