Is banana fish gay

After all, the world of Banana Fish is one populated by gangs, the mafia and drugs. While there seems to be a certain unsavory taste for showing sexual violenceone needs to take into account the historical and narrative contexts. Ash goes as far as killing his best friend -- an unthinkable feat -- to save Eiji.

Despite the absence of an official label, Banana Fish is generally considered a boys' love anime by virtue of its depiction of the bond between Ash and Eiji. This meant that the young male characters were all drawn as being particularly lithe and handsome, if not outright cute.

If a second season is ever released, making Ash and Eiji a real couple may balance out the violence of the story, making Banana Fish a more respectful and meaningful artistic product. Thank you for posting here in r/bananafish! Banana Fish is known for its inclusion of both shonen and shojo elements, as it has an art style more associated with the latter, despite being categorized as the former.

Please ensure that any posts are tagged as spoilers as appropriate. I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Funnily enough, they make fun of Max and Jessica for bickering, claiming that they "will never get married," seemingly not realizing that their behavior mirrors that of a married couple.

Please make sure the source of any fan content is linked to in the comments, or is clear that it is original content.

Please do so in the comments too if the original post is not spoiler tagged. Eiji is there to help his boss take pictures of the gang leader, and Ash makes fun of him for being a child, despite being a year-old himself. Banana Fish was first published in the '80s.

Yut Lung, another character who was brought up to become a member of the Lee crime family, readily offers his body to Golzine in order to ensure his collaboration; on that occasion, Eiji risks becoming a victim of sexual violence too.

When considering the historical and narrative contexts, then, it seems hard to condemn Banana Fish as homophobic. Whenever Ash is restrained or captured by older men, it seems that the specter of sexual violence is always waiting just around the corner.

Originally published in the mid-'80s, Banana Fish finally received an anime adaptation inover 30 years later. It would have been incredibly difficult to present a positive same-sex relationship in the media, especially between two men.

Is Banana Fish a Gay Anime?

Is ldquo Banana Fish : The fact that Banana Fish was published in a shojo magazine, and therefore clearly targets a female audience, reinforces this impression

Far from being subtle, their relationship goes from being antagonistic to flirty, and eventually tender and romantic, in adherence to a lot of shojo anime tropes. The narrative explores themes of trauma, survival, and found family. Please contact the moderators of.

After their first adrenaline-filled encounter, Ash and Eiji never let go of one another again. Sign in now. Is Banana Fish Boys' Love? The bickering and flirting never fade, but it's increasingly supported by a profound shared trust -- Eiji and Ash tell each other about their pasts, their nightmares and their hopes and dreams.

Moreover, Golzine and his men are not the only ones to partake in sexual violence and pedophilia -- Ash was abused as a child by a man that he later killed. It often depicts sex as violent and non-consensual, as well as being linked to pedophilia and prostitution.

Exploring Sexuality and Subtext in the Series Banana Fish is not explicitly labeled a gay anime, but the deeply intimate and emotionally complex relationship between Ash Lynx and Eiji Okumura is interpreted by many viewers as romantic, even if the series stops short of definitive confirmation.

As they grow closer, their domesticity leaves others as stunned as the audience -- Eiji is the only one who can wake Ash up without metaphorically getting his head blown off, they sleep in the same bed and Ash seems to be more relaxed, more his age, around him than anywhere else.

Since Banana Fish refuses to call its one good pair a couple, does that make it homophobic? The manga was released in the midst of the AIDS crisis, at a time when homosexuality was demonized and feared, perhaps accounting for the violence and viciousness portrayed in the story.

It's therefore all the more amazing that the tender story of Ash and Eiji could see the light of day at all.