Just Sad Manga

Ash Lynx is the king of folding like paper and I will stand by that to the bitter end. He says he can’t always protect Eiji and calls him a burden and not three episodes later he’s preaching about how Eiji shouldn’t hold a gun because “I’ll do enough killing for the both of us, I’m gonna keep you safe”. He has to yell at Eiji ONCE and proceeds to down half a bottle of bourbon because he feels so bad. The whole reason he had to yell at him in the first place was to keep him away from him for his safety, and like five episodes later he’s begging Eiji to not leave his side. Shorter fully betrays him and puts him and Eiji in a dangerous situation and he doesn’t even THINK about holding it against him. He forgives him before he even figures out what’s going on. He’s ranting about how “you cant pick your parents and you can’t just replace them if you don’t like them” meanwhile five episodes later he’s calling Max “dad” and trusting him with secrets he hasn’t told anyone else (aside from Eiji ofc). This boy is the most dangerous person in New York and single-handedly took down the mafia and corrupt factions of the US government. He’s got a bodycount in the thousands.

i’m rewatching banana fish with the new dub and i’m once again so annoyed they decided to move the setting to the 2010s instead of the 80s. it’s not completely detrimental to the plot but there’s a few details that always ruin the immersion e.g. ash using a magnum revolver, marvin having physical cp instead of just a dodgy hard drive, and then larger set pieces that just seem like they couldn’t occur in the 2010s like the gangs managing to have an entire turf war with subway stations and trains as a setting followed by an open air knife fight on coney island. if you know anything about modern american history and politics, the US government where pulling crazy shit with experimental drugs in real life in the 70s anyway and new york was a massive hub for gang activity. in the manga, griffin and max served in vietnam, not iraq, and again in real life the US government actually did use experimental weaponry. the mind control element, obviously a reference to a salinger short story like they explain in ep 1, is also most likely based off MK Ultra and similar programs which occurred roughly mid 60s to early 70s but was exposed in 1974. what was the need to move it 30 years forward? it just contextually messes up the details when the context is so insanely important. also the literary references feel a lot more topical with the original setting, salinger published in the 40s-50s and if you’ve read any of his work, the new york he’s writing about aligns much more with the 80s than literally trump 1.0 era america.