Omake: Banana Fish in Popular Culture

Gackt, a famous (or infamous) Japanese pop star, has said that Banana Fish is his all-time favorite manga. John wrote to me in an email:

Japanese popstar Gackt wrote a song called "Aslan's Dream" about Ash watching Eiji sleep... Awww... Akemi Yoshida even interviewed Gackt (all the members of his band were interviewed by their favourite manga artist) and did some drawings of him.

Do you want to hear the song for yourself?

A couple of people have also emailed me about the J-Rock group Shounen Knife's song "Banana Fish." Sadly, the Shounen Knife song has nothing to do with Akimi Yoshida's manga. Which, if you stop to think about it for a moment, should be duh-obvious: "Banana Fish" the song was recorded in 1983, two years before the Banana Fish manga debuted in Bessatsu Shoujo Comic. The song has nothing to do with the manga. Rather, the Shounen Knife song tells the story of an actual banana fish.

The 2004-2005 animated series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex contains a visual homage to Banana Fish. In episode 12, in the background of one shot, you can apparently see a huge poster which proclaims "GO SEE BANANA FISH!" Katze informed me of this via email, and Ari sent me the screenshots to prove it!

Ari writes:

The main character watches the movie ["Banana Fish"] and cries for it's very touching. She also says it's a movie "with no end and no beginning, but so good people cannot stop watching it." Later, it is said the 'ghost' film director has always dreamed of making the perfect movie and succeeded. Too bad the posters look nothing like banana fish. Unless the two guys at the bottom are older eiji and yutlung with short hair.

Omake: Banana Fish in Academia

Frederik L. Schodt's wonderful book Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga contains a section devoted to an introduction to, description of, and analysis of Banana Fish. It's essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Banana Fish's role in shoujo comic history. A few choice quotes include:

"Akimi Yoshida's action-packed mystery-thriller, Banana Fish, began serialization in May 1985 and quickly captured a broad range of readers in Japan. Its conclusion - ten years, 3400 pages, and nineteen paperback volumes later - garnered mentions in major newspapers. For fans, it had become an addiction and an emotional roller-coaster ride, with every episode bringing new twists and turns in the complicated plot."

"Like slowly peeling an onion layer by layer, Yoshida reveals more and more about her characters and their motivations..."

"What makes Banana Fish so unusual a manga is that it was originally designed for young girls and serialized in the special monthly supplement issue of Shoujo Comics, a 524-page magazine that targets junior and senior high school girls. But the story's fans included both genders; while it was serialized, Banana Fish was one of the few girls' manga a red-blooded Japanese male adult could admit to reading without blushing. Yoshida, while adhering to the conventions of girls' comics in her emphasis on gay male love, made this possible by eschewing flowers and bug eyes in favor of tight bold strokes, action scenes, and speed lines. Her composition perhaps most closely resembles that of Katsuhiro Otomo - the artist who created a revolution in clean-line realism in male manga in the early eighties and who was one of the first to draw Japanese people with more Asian-like features."

Schodt, Frederik L. 1996. Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga.
Berkeley, California: Stone Bridge Press.

That was just a snippet of the fascinating analysis written by Mr. Schodt. By the way, if you're interested in manga at all, I can't recommend Schodt's books Dreamland Japan and its prequel, Manga! Manga! enough. They are perhaps the only books about anime/manga that represent, discuss, and explain shoujo manga accurately, without resorting to sensationalism or dumb generalizations.

And if you're interested in other academic studies of shoujo manga, Matt Thorn, who translated the first couple volumes of Banana Fish into English, writes with refreshing insight on the world on shoujo manga. Banana Fish, of course, shows up in a couple of his articles. ;)

<< Main Index