Banana Fish Episode Three Review: Across The River and Into The Trees by Ernest Hemingway

Banana Fish did it again. With all the literary usage and poetic-infused realism clued out by the works of Hemingway and Salinger, episode three proved that we’re going through the story in post-modern, 80s literary pathway. Starting from here, everything will be coveted with its nihilistic vibe because if there’s anything I want to reiterate at the start of this review, episode three is the time when all the wheels began rolling — episode two is just a prolegomena, and now, everything will change.

This episode consists of Max and Ash’s Freytag relationship, giving us all the knowledge we need before succumbing ourselves completely in this Banana Fish rabbit hole: from the identity of the ‘banana fish’, the content of necklace everyone’s seems interested in, what happened in Pakistan, and the man who was named Aslan Callenreese — this episode asks a pivotal hypothetical question: “do you still want to continue or not?”

(warning: mentions of non-consensual acts and rape)

Yet as we say yes, we’ve been welcomed by the first bad shit out of the many: Ash’s library scene. This is a sensitive topic as it doesn’t only depict rape in terms of fictional scene but a reality that frequently happened at that time. Akimi Yoshida portrayed this out of the bl gaze, giving it a dark theme and significance not only on Ash’s character development, but the heaviness of the topic in moral sense, which I appreciated. But the anime differs. They only passed it by, not even once giving a thought, making it only a filler scene. I contemplated this a lot as there’s a possibility that censorship is the reason, but the abberance I’ve felt when I was watching it is insulting. They can tackle the topic while keeping it low and implicitness negated, but they didn’t. This is actually similar with ‘Marvin is gay’ scene; they’ve put it in a comedic sense to avoid the seriousness of deliberating someone’s sexuality. So far, the anime is trying to lessen the seriousness of topics that should’ve stayed, of course, serious. Well, I’m not going to be surprised if they’ll do it again. Just…disappointed.

But still, this episode left me breathless. It tugs the right strings at the perfect moment, giving a momentum on the story enough not to get surprised, which is actually different from the situation from last episode. This time they put a lot of foreshadowing that are heavily connotated pessimism, and it indeed happened.

The story was threaded in a compact way, too tight to be honest. It is too fast; like they’re really trying to put everything in the 24-episode blueprint, so the sad thing is Banana Fish is a fucking long manga with too much details, twists, and literary spirals; putting everything inside that numerical box, the pacing would definitely suffer. I noticed this on the first episode, I shrugged it off with the idea that it was necessary — introductions of characters and solidifying the plot as usual, but after three episodes, I was indeed wrong.

Should I even mention Ash and Eiji’s relationship? That’s the only fast pacing I’ll appreciate in this anime.

To be honest, I am expecting a lot every time MAPPA put another episode. This anime still has a lot of plot and production holes yet they really outdid themselves. For now, all I am hoping is for them to no mistreat the issues Akimi Yoshida put on the manga, it is there for a reason not only plot-wise but also in terms of shaking sleeping neutral opinions — or maybe starting a political upheaval, I’ll never know.

Postscript: I’ve mentioned that I’ll write more about Ash and Eiji’s relationship, but it is not even on the pedestal yet, let’s wait we get the perfect momentum.