In these two volumes, Ash largely leaves the follow-up concerning Banana Fish to reporter Max Lobo and his colleague, Steve, and instead sets his sights on exacting bloody vengeance against Arthur, a former member of Ash’s gang who betrayed him. At first, it seems like two major events are going to complicate things for Ash—namely, that he’s the prime suspect in the arson at Dino Golzine’s mansion and that Dino has traded a sizable contribution to a politician’s campaign in exchange for legal custody of Ash.
Ash, however, neatly sidesteps both threats, executing a two-pronged financial attack against Dino and fooling the cops into thinking he’s the privileged son of a banker. This leaves Ash free to order a massacre, culminating in a riveting one-on-one (at least, it was supposed to be) fight between Ash and Arthur in a deserted subway station. Meanwhile, Ash attempts once again to get Eiji to return to Japan, though not before revealing some of his pain and vulnerability to him.
We see so many different sides of Ash in these volumes. When he’s alone with Eiji he allows himself to cry over what he’s become, sharing memories both painful and amusing (the pumpkin story!), and reveals that he never once wanted to be “exceptional.” Ash is too pragmatic to indulge in wishes, but one gets the sense that if he would let himself dream, he would want a quiet life where he’s free to be a kid, which is exactly what he gets by being with Eiji. There’s an extraordinarily touching scene where he simply needs Eiji’s presence so much that he asks him to stay with him a while, and Eiji, with a look of profound peace upon his face, replies, “Forever.”
Things can’t stay so calm, however. Eiji, confused by how Ash can sob into Eiji’s lap one moment and kill someone the next, takes issue with Ash’s cold-blooded vengeance. “Which is the real one? Or do they both exist side by side in you, without contradiction?” he thinks at one point, and he’s not even privy to the third side of Ash—the absolutely brilliant one who not only orchestrates the attack on Dino but is able to analyze the political situation prompting some high-ranking officials in the US government to employ Banana Fish for their own ends.
Simply describing some of these scenes is not doing them justice. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of an intelligent and wounded young man who is absolutely determined to survive the hand he’s been dealt, and conceals his hurt and insecurities under a veneer of coldness. Ash is prepared to send Eiji away because his friendship is dangerous to him, but if he succeeds he would also be sending away his one outlet, the one person in front of whom he doesn’t need to pretend to be okay. Ash is a broken badass and man, who would have thought I could love him more now than I did after volume six? And yet I do.
I only wish the art were better. It might just be me, but I do think that Ash is drawn much more handsomely now than in early volumes, and looks especially snazzy in his glasses and designer duds while posing as the rich kid. Unfortunately, black characters still look pretty awful, though one new black character—Cain, the leader of a neutral gang—is a great new addition to the cast. I hope he sticks around. Too, a lot of times characters shown in profile look like they have pillows shoved up under their shirts. What is up with that?
It’s always hard not to continue to the next volume when I get to the end of an installment of Banana Fish, but this was harder than most. Still, I don’t want to get too far ahead of the roundable discussion, which you should keep an eye out for at Manga Bookshelf.
The art was a big barrier for me when I started with Banana Fish. I admit, I like my shoujo best of the 70s style—it’s not so much even character designs, but I just prefer that montage style of page layout over the more traditonally shonen “clear panel” look. Yet, partly because it improved and partly just because I acclimatized, but I’ve actually become a big fan of Yoshida’s artwork. And it definitely suits the story. Ha I haven’t noticed the pillows under shirts, but I’ll keep my eyes open as I re-read it…
(I do agree about the Black characters, for the most part, albeit thye look better than other examples I can think of…)
You’re spot on about the fact that just describing the plot, really doesn’t give BF its due. Yeah, the plot is filled with near endless, and often genuinely surprising and exciting, twists and turns… But as has been said elsewhere by you, what really is its strength is how subtly and consistently the characters are portrayed, with often the quiet scenes really being what sticks in your memory. (I think I said as much in a past comment—that getting back to Banana Fish a number of years after finishing it, I realized I forgot a HUGE amount of the plot—but what stuck with me were the characters and those almost wistful moments).
Definitely. I could spend paragraphs and paragraphs describing the actually plot, which is legitimately fascinating in its own right, but it’s the moments of interaction between Ash and Eiji—sometimes even an expression—that really make me love the series.
Yeah, and I think that’s Yoshida’s strength in general (I’ve only read some of Yasha, and the first volume of her first hit, Kisshō Tennyo, as well as her supremely touching short, polysexual slice of life series Lovers’ Kiss). It’s too bad that I get theimpression Banana Fish wasn’t a hit here, as I’d love to see more of her work translated. (It’s a shame that even the companion volume to Fish, Private Opinion-side stories and prequels-wasn’t translated).
In regards to her her art, Yoshisa said that at some point she fell in love with River Phoenix and started basing Ash’s look more on him. I’m not sure when that would have happened in the comic’s run, but he didn’t really become a teen idol till ’88 at least—some three years into the run.
Anyway, great write up.
I am envious of your extra Yoshida reading. I really need to learn Japanese, but where is the time?
I haven’t really equated Ash’s looks with River Phoenix, but he does look prettier now, which fits better with how others perceive him.
And thanks again!
Oh My Japanese is barely nonexistant—a Japanese friend gave me Lovers’ Kiss and proviuded a rough translation ages back, the other stuff I’ve only managed to get through a bit… I don’t think she has any other works out even in French, which is how I’ve read some titles like their excellent editions of Rose of Versailles. But I totally still feel your frustration about how many works—works that I suspect would become my fave (by the 49ers, etc) just still aren’t being translated… I guess we really should be thankful Viz did all of Banana Fish even if they left off the spin off volume—honestly since the initial translations started, I believe around 1999, for a long time I thought it simply would be dropped. I admit it was hard going though finally getting the final vol of it, and of my other fave series at the time Please Save My Earth in the same month—I was devestated ^_^
Yeah I was looking at River pics and I do kinda see it in some of his late 80s pics (especially the hair) but I’m not sure I would have if she hadn’t mentioned it.
I have recently purchased the French editions of Rose of Versailles, but so far I haven’t done anything with ’em. 🙂
I am hopeful that the new imprint from Fantagraphics will bring more by the 49ers in future, particularly if A Drunken Dream does well. There are soooo many of their series I’m sure will be delicious shoujo crack if only we could read them! 🙂
The french Rose is fairly easy french—and a good translation. I hope you enjoy them (they were smart to put it all out in Aizoubon size—and I love that they even included a third volume with the 1980s side stories—which I haven’t got to yet (I know many fans don’t like them, lol but I don’t care…)
Yeah I have my fingers crossed. With Matt Thorn in charge, surely they’ll do at least another shoujo classic. While I don’t expect Drunken Dream to be a blockbuster—it’s gotten a LOT of attention even on western comic blogs, so I hope that’s a good sign.
Yeah, me too. I’ll be reviewing it for Comics Should Be Good in the near future, myself!
Regarding Rose of Versailles, I actually found some text translations online for either 6 or 8 of the original volumes, so that should take me through most of the series, at least!
Just a heads up, because I wasn’t aware of it till this past week—Asuka in France published Riyoko Ikeda’s complete Oniisama E (500 pages) in a similar Aizoubon edition (with colour plates, etc) to those Rose of Versailles, in a very good Frenc translation. I found a copy for 15 bucks—and since it’s my personal fave Ikeda work, I was thrilled. (Sadly there doesn’t seem to be any plans to translate the other essential Ikeda piece—Orpheus’ Window).
Thanks for the alert! I recently purchased Oniisama E in a two-volume edition in Japanese, and have found some very, very detailed chapter summaries on line so was gonna try to make a go of it that way. Nice to know I have another option if that should fail. 🙂
BTW the French title is Tres Chere Frere (nice rhyme there)—I’m sure it’ll be in print for a while, as it’s only a year old (it seems like the Kana three vol Versailles set is already falling out of print).
That’s great—I had no idea it existed in a 2 volume set as well—I actually have the old original 1970s volumes—three tankoubons with the last volume also containing an older Ikeda short story that seems to be set in a similar school setting.
Yeah, no extras here. Just the 18 (I think) chapters of the main series.
Yeah I guess the original ran 10 tankoubons (I’m always amazed how fast Rose was cranked out—back when more manga was weekly not monthly, basically 2000 pages in 2 years. Banana Fish is about 4000 but over 9 years). I love how raw the art is in Rose—it’s gorgeous but also has lots of 60s shoujo things liek those really cartoony drawings that by the time Ikeda did Orpheus’ Window 2 years later were phased out for more elaborate art throughout.
Anyway can’t wait to read your review of Drunken. If Banana Fish came out initially when these blogs were all around, maybe it would have caught on better. (I just found out some early vols, like 4 I believe are out of print and go for a fair amount on Amazon…)
Yeah, some of the best of VIZ’s old Shojo imprint have out-of-print volumes now. I believe vol. 7 of Please Save My Earth is notoriously hard to find and 19-20 of Basara, too. This would seem to validate my “buy-it-then-hoard-it” approach to acquiring manga. 🙂
Oh gosh, I know THAT approach. It’s when you buy lots and lots of manga, and then 50% of your collection is unread.
In my case, I fear it’s more like 80%. Partly this is because for several years I insisted on reviewing every volume I read, but now that I’ve relaxed that self-imposed rule I hope that I am able to get more of it read.
Yeah. It’s not that we find manga boring, it’s just that we don’t always want to read it all the time. And those series that we always say “We’ll get around to it” but never do.
If I kept only the books I read on my bookshelves, and got rid of all the ones I didn’t read, I would have about a shelf’s worth. If I had only read them when I bought them, this would never have happened!
I am making a concentrated effort next year to actually read a big chunk of the novels I own. I suspect that after reading them, some will be keepers and some will not, enabling me to free up some space!
I’m having a tough time finishing my Boys Over Flowers collection. Really irritating.
Yeah, that’s another series that’s affected. I wonder if Red River is similar, since it’s also very long and was published under that imprint.
I only have the first 5 vols in their original flipped versions. And while I don’t like some of the changes in the new editions to translation (removal of some swearing for instance), the completist in me would like to replace them all with the unflipped editions. But I was looking on amazon and while vol 1 and a couple of others are easy to find but some like vol 4 go for quite a bit now… (Though nothing as expensive as something like Tezuka’s Phoenix vol 1…)
When I decided to buy Banana Fish the 2nd edition was already completely released. I think I acquired some volumes used and quite a few using the 4-for-3 deal available on Amazon. I can’t remember what I paid for vol. 4, but I don’t think it was anything astronomical.
Btw, the roundtable on volumes 7 and 8 is now posted at Manga Bookshelf.