Banana Fish is tough to watch at times, but for the most part it's extremely compelling and tells an important story. · Waifora

Banana Fish Review

Name: Banana Fish is tough to watch at times, but for the most part it's extremely compelling and tells an important story.
Item: BANANA FISH
Rating: 95
Author: dommywommy

Before the review starts, I wanted to take a moment to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day! If nobody else is your valentine today, then it's me! I love you!!!! Summary Banana Fish is a really rough story about some really rough characters who live in a really rough world and are forced to do some really rough things. It’s rough. But DAMN it’s good. Watch it! You’ll be better off for it! It was amazing. But also, prepare yourself to be depressed for approximately 4.5 days after you finish. Honestly, it’s been like two weeks and I’m still depressed. WATCH THIS SHOW. And then talk to me about it  SCORE: 9.5/10

Story Ok. I want to start by throwing out a warning because NOBODY told me what I needed to prepare for before watching Banana Fish. Ok, well, @KisaDi might have mentioned something but I don’t really listen to her for whatever reason (clearly a result of my own stupidity maybe?). Anyway, if you haven’t watched Banana Fish yet and don’t know what it’s about, do yourself a favour and prepare for an extremely good story that takes place under an extremely depressing and upsetting backdrop. I would consider myself somewhat of a connoisseur of depressing television. I thought I had seen the worst environments that writers had to offer. BOY was I wrong. I don’t want to give anything away in the story so I will stick to generalities for this discussion, which is actually somewhat saddening because there are so many nuances and little events that underpin the story that I would love to discuss. The story is sad. It starts off sad, then get’s sadder, then gets sadder again. Just when you think it’s about to get better and things will shape up for our best-friends-who-could-also-be-boyfriends protagonists, it gets even more sad. Banana Fish tells a story characterized by pain, sadness, and loss. And it’s damn good. Honestly, this is one of my favourite stories in anime and it made me curious about some of the darker, more depressing anime storylines. More importantly, it made me question the reality of the life I live and the world I’m surrounded by. I like art that makes me think. That’s saying something because I have a very limited brain cell count (@KisaDi would tell you that count is 2, give or take). Anyway, Banana Fish was amazing and I definitely recommend you pay attention, internalize the story, and let it consume you. SCORE: 10/10

Characters The characters in Banana Fish are incredible, and I would consider the characterization to be quite an achievement for the studio. Each character feels very grounded and realistic. Characters are complex and have (sometimes competing) motives and aspirations. More importantly, the character development is deeply tied within the plot and so much is revealed and revisited across the series. You know the characters are well written when they make you yell at your computer monitor at 2 AM something along the lines of “DUDE YOU HOW CAN YOU DO THIS WHAT THE IS WRONG WITH YOU” and you wake up your roommates and they yell at you and ask what you’re doing. Banana Fish’s characters are that good. I’m a person with… let’s call it limited emotional attachment to digital characters, yet Banana Fish had me… feeling things. ‘Nuff said. Watch the show. SCORE: 10/10

Visuals I actually quite enjoyed the visuals of Banana Fish. The entire colour scheme is kind of… muted? All of the colours are very lifelike and have a grey tone to them, probably to reflect the grim reality of the world the characters are a part of. Additionally, the character design feels very traditional, even though the anime is relatively recent. This is probably because the manga is so old, but I’m happy they stuck to the original character designs, as the visual aesthetic has a certain authenticity to it that’s hard to quantify. Either way, I liked it, even though I’m a fan of saturated colours. I feel like the style really worked for the content of the show. Scenes were also well animated and everything feels very real. Nothing too flashy. It just makes sense. SCORE: 8.5/10

Music Usually I try to remain impartial for these reviews (who am I kidding here?), but I’m heavily biased towards the soundtrack for Banana Fish. Not ONLY is it kick-ass, but the first opening is sang by my favourite band!!!!! Survive Said The Prophet absolutely smashed it out of the park. The second opening is fire but it’s no SSTP, and both endings are also quite good. Not much to say other than all 4 are in my Japanese playlist on spotify. Very good. SCORE: 10/10

Enjoyment I really enjoyed this one. It made me think, made me sad, made me hopeful, and then made me sad again. And I loved every minute of it. Honestly it’s worth your time. The show presents a stark look at the reality of some very tough subject matter, and it handles all of these subjects with grace and beauty. It really is a timeless tale, and one that is just as relevant today as it was in the 80s. Unfortunately, it will probably continue to be relevant for the foreseeable future, which is extremely upsetting. But hey, at least the show was frickin’ amazing. SCORE: 9/10

P.S
If you enjoyed this review, please feel free to check out my other reviews.  Also, feel free to start a conversation with me about this series or any other great series you like! I’m new to anime/manga so I’m always looking for recommendations. I appreciate you reading until the end! Thanks so much!