Story:
Ash Lynx is a New York boss in charge of a small street gang. His life changes when he finds a dying man who gives him a small item, a location and the words "banana fish." He soon finds himself on a quest to unravel the mystery of those words and the contents of the mysterious powder all while befriending the innocent Japanese youth Okumura Eiji and trying to sever his ties from the area's largest mafioso, Golzine Dino.
There are quite a few narrative issues with this series. The first is that it quickly falls into a somewhat absurd pattern where Ash will be captured by Golzine or his men, he'll escape causing a tonne of damage and then Golzine will order him to be brought back alive. Because when you've captured the same kid four bloody times only to have him escape, you definitely want him brought in alive again. At least, if you have no pattern recognition.
There are also problems with consistency. Golzine starts out saying he doesn't care if Ash is crippled. He just wants to break and then kill him. This quickly shifts to Golzine wanting to force Ash to be his successor. Because he can't change his mind about bringing him in alive, but he can easily change his mind about the fundamental reason to do so. There's also a point where Ash is considered dead and brags about how this frees him up to move around without anyone looking for him. About three episodes later, he has to disguise himself to visit a particular person because he's a wanted man. We don't see any signs that word's gotten out that reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated but he's suddenly a wanted man again. I see the writing in this is going the Final Fantasy VIII route of not even trying.
Then there's the sexual assault stuff. This series features a lot of rape. Particularly within character back stories. And a lot of it isn't handled in any meaningful way. It's just basically used as an excuse for why characters like Ash & Lee Yut-Lung got to be the way they are, for cheap tragedy, and as an easy way for Ash to get some dirt against Golzine. It just comes across as in slightly poor taste and excessive. I also find it hard to believe that Americans would victim blame a literal child by acting like he seduced an adult. I know the culture around sexual assault is pretty bad there and grown women get victim blamed a lot, but that seems ridiculous. I don't know, American readers can tell me if children actually get victim blamed after being raped over there.
The big, climactic action sequence at the end is also a bit of a let down. It all feels rushed. The whole plot with the banana fish also gets pretty much dropped and all the build up surrounding it is completely wasted. It also feels a bit deus ex machina that a certain character who gets shot twice and left for dead returns to save the protagonists twice.
The story does start out with a lot of potential. The idea of the boss of a street gang fighting to take down the big mafia leader who mentored him is compelling. The first few times Ash gets captured or arrested have some interesting, tense moments. It just stops working when the third time hits because, at that point, it's an obvious story pattern.
A lot of the build up surrounding banana fish is also really interesting. You want to see what's going to come from it. Until you get to the end and it's all a big fat waste of your time.
Characters:
There are certainly issues with the characters. The big antagonist is a moron who never learns from his mistakes. Colonel Fox makes no sense as a character. Maybe it's because he's only in the last four episodes or so, but he's a mercenary who loves to kill. But he wants to set Ash up as a puppet leader because... Code of Hero is the best Transformers episode.
There are some pretty strong dynamics with Ash and his gang. Well, with Ash, Shorter & Eiji. Pretty much every other character in his gang is bland. Which is a definite ongoing issue in the series. There are a few focus characters who are kind of interesting and developed but for each of them there are three side characters who might as well be unseasoned bricks of tofu. And one antagonist with rubbish or inconsistent motivations.
Art:
This is actually one area where I have to give MAPPA a lot of credit. This anime looks great. The action sequences are dynamic. The characters have strong designs. The backgrounds and various objects are nicely detailed. And the series restrains itself and doesn't show the various sexual assaults in any kind of detail.
Sounds:
The acting is solid. Nojima Kenji, Uchida Yuuma, Morikawa Toshiyuki & Furukawa Makoto are all strong in their roles. And the rest of the cast is, at the very least, completely competent. The music is decent enough. I'm not really a fan of the theme tunes, personally but they're fine.
Ho-yay:
There's a lot. Ash's back story involves him being raped by a whole slew of dudes. And there are a lot more who come across as sexually attracted to him. His dynamic with Eiji is also pretty homo-erotic.
Areas of Improvement:
Keep it consistent. Yes, motivations and situations can change. But you need to illustrate that instead of having situation or motivation A and then swapping to B with no explanation.
If you're going to include sexual assault as a significant element in a story, you really need to handle it well. In this case, the history of sexual assault is largely there for the sake of having a tragic back story. And it's barely handled beyond being there, much less handled well.
Don't drop your important plots. Like I said, the whole Banana Fish thing comes up a lot and goes nowhere by the end.
Final Thoughts:
Banana Fish had a strong start and real potential. Unfortunately, the repetition of Ash gets captured plots, poorly handled sexual assault, main antagonist's stupidity, consistency issues and other problems quickly evaporate the good will it starts with. By the end, we're left with a sub-par work. I'm giving it a 4/10. And that's mainly because of the strong start and those well executed dynamics.
