I think what so many people who criticize the ending of “Banana Fish” don’t understand, is the story itself, and what the story is about.

“Banana Fish” was always a story about the devastation and consequences of child abuse. Ash dying in the end is absolutely meant to be seen as, and IS a tragedy, but that’s really the point. His death was necessary within the narrative to drive the tragedy of his life home and make the audience really understand it as such. To make the reader and/or viewer face up to the reality of that tragic life, and not allow them to hide from it through the comfort of a happy ending. We’re meant to feel devastated by Ash’s death, precisely because it isn’t fair, or just, or good. It’s in fact breathtakingly unfair. But again, that’s the point. His whole life was unfair.

Ash is a character who, on the surface, would seem to have every natural advantage and privilege in life. He’s incredibly good looking, frighteningly intelligent, physically gifted, etc…. He’s someone who had basically limitless potential. Someone who could have been anything he wanted. Right? Eiji even makes this argument to Ash at one point, talking about how he has so much more than the average person. How he has all these “gifts” that normal people don’t have. Ash gets incredibly upset over this and tells Eiji he never once asked for any of it before running away. Because to Ash, all his “gifts” have ever brought him is the unwanted attention of his abusers. And again, that’s the point.

The abuse Ash suffered destroyed everything he had, and everything he could have been. It took what should have been his limitless potential and promise and twisted it into something ugly and horrific for him, before snuffing it out completely. That’s what abuse does.

All of Ash’s potential, all of his gifts and all of his promise, was stolen away from him because he was abused, and so severely abused from such a young age.

Because he was raped when he was seven years old, and because he then found no real support from his father, but only more abuse, he ran away from home, which lead to him being homeless on the streets of New York as a young child, which lead to his abduction into a sex trafficking ring owned by a mafia don and his further sexual abuse, which in turn lead to him being dragged against his will into a life of violence and crime, which eventually lead to his death. Everything Ash could have been, all of the promise and potential that he had, was ruined by the abuse he suffered. And once more, that’s the point. To show the devastating consequences of child abuse. To not let the audience pretend, through a forced happy ending for Ash, that what he went through really wasn’t that bad or ruinous.

All of this leads back to the failure of the adults in Ash’s life to protect him. His death is directly linked to that. And so, as devastating, tragic and unfair as Ash’s death was, it was also vital to the narrative of the story working as well as it did. We aren’t meant to be happy about it, or relieved. We’re meant to be destroyed and heartbroken by it, because by refusing to compromise and give in to the audiences desire to see a happy ending for Ash, it forces us to also realize we should be just as devastated and heartbroken over Ash’s whole life. By forcing us to face the injustice and cruelty of his death, it also forces us understand, to fully grasp, the injustice and cruelty of his life. We aren’t allowed to pretend that what Ash suffered is easily dismissed or conquered or recovered from. We aren’t allowed to turn away from the devastating end point of it. Instead, by making us watch Ash die, after a lifetime of horrific suffering, it also makes us acknowledge the full extent and depth of the damage wrought onto him in his short life, and to children who go through what Ash did. We’re forced to acknowledge the way child abuse can and does ruin promising young lives.

My unhealthy obsession with enjoying works that were created to physically hurt me all began with Titanic. What about you?

basically, an asheijified study of this

“to do this, i must know your story!”

thinking about how eiji's a pole vaulter and how ash talks about eiji "flying" and how eiji's associated with bird imagery and how eiji's free (unlike ash) and how eiji comes in on a plane and leaves on a plane and how ash cannot fly, ash cannot be free, how nyc is ash's prison, and how ash is the leopard who dies climbing the mountain, unable to live at such elevation, how he was trying to reach the sky and be free but was always stuck to the earth, how he chose to die instead of climbing back down, how he chose to die where he could see the sky and hope and freedom almost like a bird with eiji's letter right in front of him rather than letting everything go wrong and ruin it once again, how eiji's a failed pole vaulter anyway, how a bad fall ruined his career and grounded him (physically and emotionally), how it took flying to america and meeting ash and needing to save him and skip for him to try flying again, how he landed hard and harsh and still the thought of that escape compelled ash to protect eiji at all costs because if he could fly that means something to him, even if he doesn't think he can fly, how eiji is the manifestation of his hope and how when he breaks and asks eiji to stay with him a while he folds himself over his legs and weighs him down and traps him and grounds him, how ash fights like hell to keep eiji alive not because he thinks he can be like him (hopeful, flying, innocent), but because he makes him forget the gravity of his situation, and so he can see eiji fly again. how he wants to see him escape. how eiji is a bird and ash is a wildcat and how ash never once saw eiji as prey. how eiji never saw ash as a predator. how it is eiji's naivete that first endears ash to him, how it is his freedom and flight and removal from darkness and his ability to leave that darkness that really roots eiji in ash's blood as something essential to him keeping on living in this hell of nyc. how it is that distance from the violence and that hope for the future that ash chooses to surround himself in as he dies. how ash dies in a dream because he feels more than anything that he can't fly like eiji, that he can never leave. how his violence is a part of him and will be forever, how it weighs him down. how he wants to enjoy the view from the mountainside rather than looking up from the ground below. as if they can both fly. as if he is with him up there and not grounded. eye-to-eye with what he can't have, seeing eiji's homeland: the sky. how he dies trying to reach the top because he couldn't take retreating and trying again. how ash, tired and tired and tired and convinced it will go on forever if he crawls back down the mountain, chooses to close his life deluged in eiji, in eiji's insistence that they can fly together, in eiji's hope for him and for them, in eiji's beautiful dream. how ash dies without trying to realize that dream. how ash, in dying, destroys it.

Trope

A: I would die for you

B: I would watch the whole wolrd burn over and over if it was the only way to save you

Its always blond x dark

illumi is a cis man out of convenience. he does not care enough to think about it. gittarackur is the most genderfuck thing ever tho yas pinhead slay

Ash Lynx deserved better send post

people get sooo mad when you purposely ignore banana fish’s (unrealistic and arguably terrible) ending when the anime itself is open-ended… not to mention when the anime finished airing, mappa changed ash’s status from dead to alive (which can still be seen on the bananafish.tv website)…. in conclusion ash and eiji are alive and together in japan idk what else to tell you

how do you cure the affliction of falling for side characters who have crumbs for screen time? asking for a friend

Of course his eyes are on Kazuki, watching his reaction to Miri with her mom, reading him like an open book as usual. He hates seeing Kazuki distraught and he knows it's killing him. But Rei stays quiet.

However, this seems like a moment where Kazuki is saying something on top of the ferris wheel, that gets quite a reaction from Rei. He's probably resigning to the idea that they need to let Miri go (which btw fuuuuck that and the mom) despite how much it'll hurt. I'd think it was some sort of admission (cuz ferris wheel heh romantic), but Kazuki is glum af and Rei reacts kind of angrily (determined?) in addition to shock to whatever he says. Idk, but

Rei isn't going to let this family go without a fight. He has something worth protecting.

Ash, I am very worried because I haven't seen you and I don't know if you are okay.

How we feelin on this December 20th Banana Fish fans?

I like to think that Eiji doesn't immediately believe that Ash is scared of pumpkins - considering how they mostly talk in sarcasm - so he places pumpkins in random places in the condo to check the legitimacy of the said fear

Me when I watch the Emotional Damage show and it actually gives me emotional damage

So for those of you who are anime only and/or haven't read the actually "Perfect Day For Bananafish" story by J.D. Salinger, Meredith's version here in the manga is far more accurate to the actual short story than what he says in the anime. ("If you see a bananafish at sea, you'll suddenly feel like dying.")

If you're anime only, you might have also wondered why Ash (who's later portrayed as a bit of a bookworm) has never heard of this story. (We'll assume that he never Googled it because of the manga taking place when Google didn't exist and the anime not wanting to deal with the plot hole lmao.)

There are a couple things I want to point out with this. First, what Ash is outright saying: "I was always more into Hemingway. A short happy life." This is uhhh not subtle. Ash is pretty clearly expressing his desire for exactly what happens at the end of his own life -- his life is short, but he finally finds happiness. And if you think that Ash is referring to a life that is short but entirely happy, keep in mind that "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," which Ash describes in the show, was written by Hemingway. Here, when describing Hemingway's work, he's talking about that leopard. He already knows he's gone too far to turn back.

This is in contrast to the protagonist of "Perfect Day for Bananafish," whose story more parallels Griffin at first glance: a war vet who gets out of a psychiatric hospital and dies after being "rescued" but not fully by a child, never really recovering from his experiences. However, as the namesake of the manga itself, we of course see Ash in the "Perfect Day" story as well -- especially in that Ash willingly walked toward his own death (as did the "Perfect Day" protagonist) whereas Hemingway's "Kilimanjaro" protagonist dies of infection against his will (more similar to Griffin -- or, alternatively, Shorter).

Both stories end in a protagonist dying prematurely, but Ash directly tells us that he's actively seeking out a short, happy life, rather than a drawn out one. To quote the second ending theme, RED by Survive Said the Prophet: "If I decide to burn instead of fading out ..."

If you've been following me for any time at all, you know that I disagree with the message that the end of the Banana Fish manga sends with Ash's death. That being said, I do think that it's what Ash wanted, and what he told the readers that he wanted from the very start. I simply think that Ash was incorrect about it being too late for him to turn back, and that it's irresponsible for the Banana Fish manga to end without him realizing that.