Ash and others perception of him:
This is gonna get long, and I keep amending it, sorry. It’s difficult for me to work out what I’m trying to say, but here it goes.
One of the things I find most interesting about Banana Fish is the recurring theme throughout of what the other characters think of and how they perceive Ash, and how, almost all of them to the letter are completely wrong. All, of course, with the very notable exception of Eiji.
Almost everyone speaks about Ash as if he’s some sort of otherworldly being. They often use terms such as “devil” or “Satan”, or “demon”, or “angel” when talking about him. This occurs with Dino, Yut-Lung, Blanca, Foxx, and any number of other characters. Even Ash’s friends, like Shorter, Sing, Cain, and his gang, talk about him like he’s almost inhuman. And, more important still, there seems to be an across the board notion between all of the former characters that Ash will eventually, one day, become like them. That he’ll become a monster. A “Prince of Darkness”. There’s even a notion among readers/viewers of Banana Fish that seems to buy into this notion. That without Eiji and his influence, Ash would eventually succumb to the dark side, as it were.
But I think it’s something a little different than that. Because, deep down, that isn’t who Ash is. It isn’t what he has inside him. Ash never cared about money, or power, or control. He never had the desire or wish to dominate people, the way all of his abusers wanted to dominate him, and control him. Despite the perceptions and beliefs of all of these characters regarding him as this incredibly dangerous, wild beast, what Ash actually is, is just a young kid who’s been horrifically abused and who is struggling every moment of every day simply to survive. And the only one who seems to ever really understand this about him, the only one who ever really sees this about him, is Eiji. Eiji even has that moment of internal dialog where he’s talking about how Ash has had to put on this facade of an ice cold heart, but that he knows it’s only, in reality, a defense mechanism. To keep himself from losing his mind. To keep others away from him because he’s been repeatedly hurt and betrayed by everyone in his life, especially adults. To simply keep himself alive. Ash shuts down when he kills, not because he doesn’t feel anything, as he keeps accusing himself of, but because he feels too much. The very act of killing is so horrific to him, he’s naturally so repulsed by it, that he’s had to learn to shut off his own emotions in order to simply survive. We know that killing has always been a terrible thing in Ash’s mind from Dino’s own words, near the beginning of the story, when he’s talking to Ash, and he reminds him about how he used to always cry with every “job” Dino gave him. One can easily infer from this that he’s talking about forcing Ash to take out hits on people, to kill people. Ash cried about it then because he hadn’t yet learned to detach himself from the act for his own sanity. Of course, as this continued, as Ash was made to do more and more terrible things to survive his own, horrific situation, it gradually and consistently eroded away at his own self-esteem, until we see how he regards himself throughout the course of the story. His deep self-loathing and disgust at himself. The tragic irony, of course, is that Ash’s own self-hatred is proof in itself of his good heart. He hates himself for killing because it’s always been something he understood to be bad, to be wrong. He’s never had a problem understanding the nature of killing. He’s never had difficulty understanding what it is, or what it means to to kill. He’s never had a lack of empathy or sympathy. He was never a sociopath, or a psychopath. He doesn’t care what the reasons for it are, or that he’s justified in it. It still tortures him, to know that he’s taken a life. It haunts him and eats away at him in the worst ways.
Ash relaxes around Eiji, because Eiji is the only one who knows that Ash isn’t this wild, out of control, vicious animal that everyone else seems to think he is. He knows that the cold, frightening facade he puts up is just that. A mask, used to protect himself and those he cares about. And because he knows that about Ash, he treats him just like a regular boy, which is all Ash has ever wanted.
The thing about this notion that Ash would become like Dino, or Yut-Lung, or even Blanca if Eiji hadn’t come into his life is, I think, wrong. Eiji doesn’t give Ash his humanity. Eiji gives Ash a sense of normalcy and a sense of what it’s like to be treated like a normal kid. He makes him feel human, because he treats him like he’s human. But even before Ash really knows Eiji, we see how deeply he cares about and is willing to sacrifice for those he loves. When he goes after Skip after he gets abducted, and willingly gives himself up to Arthur and Marvin. We see he’s formed deep and loving connections to people, like Skip, and Shorter and of course his brother Griff. We see him show genuine, anguished emotion over all of them when they’re killed. He cared about them deeply, and it wrecked him when they died through their association with him. That isn’t the reaction of a monster. That’s the reaction of a human being who’s lost someone they love. It hurts him to his core.
We see him go out of his way to spare the members of his gang who moved against him by working for Dino, telling them to get lost instead of shooting them. He spared Arthur even, during their turf war, when he took over all of Arthur’s gangs. All of those acts of mercy eventually came back to bite Ash, because all of those people then turned around and betrayed him and tried to kill him. And that really informs the one moment in Banana Fish in which Ash’s morality seems to waver somewhat, when he’s taking out members of Arthur’s gang in systematic fashion. Even during this point in the story, Ash gives those guys ever chance to save their own lives by telling his own gang to get the word out that if they skip town, no one will come after them. Ash and his crew will leave them alone, as long as they don’t join forces with Arthur against him. After that, those who fail to heed his warning or accept his leniency, yeah, Ash goes after them without mercy. But that, again, ties back into what we see earlier, with how Ash’s previous acts of mercy towards Arthur and others resulted in the situation he then found himself in. The fight he has with Eiji, when Ash screams at him that if he shows any of Arthur’s gang mercy, they’ll just kill him, is founded in Ash’s own, brutal experiences. He knows that if he lets those guys go who beg for their lives, that they’ll just run back to Arthur, regroup, and attack Ash and his crew again, not only risking Ash’s life then, but those who have placed their trust in him as their leader. Ash’s actions here, as harsh and merciless as they may seem, are actually based on his own past experiences and logic. He isn’t killing Arthur’s gang because he wants to. Or because he’s trying to gain power. Or because he thinks it’s fun. He’s doing it because past experience tells him if he doesn’t, him and those who follow him are going to pay the heavy price of their lives. It’s not even really revenge for Shorter’s death. It’s defense through offense, protecting the lives of himself and his gang because he’s been forced to take action by Arthur’s refusal to leave him alone. Even then, Ash is willing and wants to simply fight Arthur one on one to end the war, so no one else has to die. He’s willing and even expects to die himself in order to save the lives of not only his gang, but Arthur’s gang. That shows a strong moral conscience. That shows goodness of heart. It’s only again when Arthur betrays him and has his entire crew try to gun Ash down in the subway that Ash kills the rest of them. That’s pure self-defense.
Beyond that point in the story, Ash, from beginning to end, constantly displays a deep and powerful moral conscience, constantly going out of his way to help others, and tries very, very hard never to hurt or kill anyone he doesn’t absolutely have to. We see Ash consistently unable to turn away when someone he knows or cares about is in danger, like Max and Ibe when they get captured in the mental facility Ash had just fought tooth and nail to escape from, literally running back into the line of fire to rescue them, directly putting himself in danger in order to help them. He’s constantly pushing other characters out of the way of gun fire, putting himself instead in the line of it. That’s a knee jerk reaction. It’s just what he does naturally. The same as Eiji. He’s constantly into firefights in order to lead others away to safety, sacrificing himself physically to rescue others, sacrificing his own privacy and mental well-being for the cause of others, when he tells Max to use the photo’s of him being molested as a child to spare the other kids who’ve been through the same thing. Ash only kills either in self-defense, or in defense of those he loves and cares about. Even in heat of the moment situations, like when members of Sing’s crew shoot Eiji and try to kill him and Ash, even when Ash seems to have lost it, repeatedly shooting their already dead bodies, when Lao comes at him with a gun, Ash doesn’t kill him. He has the presence of mind to simply shoot Lao in the hand. He isn’t ever an out of control wild animal. That’s just what people have made Ash believe about himself, which is one of the most tragic aspects about him. That he’s been manipulated into seeing himself as a monster, when he never was. When Lao screams “He’s not human, he’s a monster!”, Ash doesn’t even defend himself. He agrees with it, even though it’s so blatantly untrue. That shows the ravages on Ash’s mental and emotional state from the abuse he’s suffered. But even with all of that, he never became like those who abused him. He never tried to hurt anyone who didn’t try to hurt him first. By contrast, everyone who claims Ash is some sort of demon, everyone who claims him to be this inhuman monster, all themselves tried to hurt Ash and those he cared about when he himself had never done anything to them. Ash never did anything to Dino, or Yut-Lung, or Foxx, or any of those people. He never went after any of them until they went after him first, or those he cared for. Even towards those who failed him so miserably and set him on the path he ended up on, like his father, Ash showed incredible compassion and care towards, despite the awful way James treated him. When Ash had every right to hate him. But he didn’t, and in fact was immensely distressed when James was shot.
As an example of how intrinsically Ash differs from the other characters who deem him a monster or a demon, I think comparing him to the character who most resembles him is a good case in point. That of course is Yut-Lung. Yut-Lung suffered his own horrific abuses and cruelties at the hands of the people who were meant to care for him, namely of course his brothers. And understandably, he wanted and was justified in taking revenge on them for what they did to him and his mother. But here’s where he and Ash diverge from each other. Yut-Lung has in him a capacity for deep pettiness, jealousy, and resentment. Failings which he acts on again and again throughout the course of the story, without hesitation, and failings which Ash himself never displays even the barest hint of, despite having suffered similar and even worse abuses in his life. Yut-Lung tries with absolute commitment to kill Eiji, over and over, simply because he can’t bear the idea that somebody actually loves Ash. He can’t bear to see Ash have even a little happiness, in a life of otherwise complete sadness and pain, because he himself doesn’t have it. He can’t stand the idea that Ash might find “redemption” through love. And so he tries with all of his considerable power to take it away from Ash. It’s the definition of pettiness and cruelty, which is something Ash, even in his darkest moments, never showed a capacity for. I don’t think Ash ever had it in him to be so ugly and unkind and vicious. He can be manipulative, of course. But he only ever used those manipulative abilities to defend himself and others. He never used them to hurt anybody who hadn’t first hurt him or those he cared about, or at least tried. He never tried to hurt someone simply because they had something he didn’t. He never tried to take something away from someone simply because he didn’t have it too. He never resented anyone for having a better life than him, or for having love when all he had was pain. And therein lies the difference between someone like Ash and Yut-Lung, and it means everything.
Ash sees himself as a monster because everyone’s always told him he is, those people projecting their own monstrosity and ugliness onto him. Trying to twist him into what they are, trying to force him into a position where he has no choice but to do terrible things in order to survive. They try to corrupt him because they themselves are corrupted and cruel. But somehow, despite all the horror of Ash’s life, he never becomes like that. He never loses that part of himself that recoils at violence and abuse, that agonizes over having to make the decisions he has to to survive. He never becomes petty, or cruel, or hateful. He never becomes unable to love. Like Ibe says about him “He’s such a good kid. He’s just such a good kid.”. I think Ash is able to resist becoming like the monsters who abused him because he had in him an innate goodness. I think Eiji could see that in him from the start, when everyone else could only see a savage animal, or a beautiful commodity. It’s also why I think Eiji was so profoundly drawn to Ash, because he could see that goodness in him from the start, and why he had the opposite feeling and reaction toward Yut-Lung, because he saw the pettiness and cruelty in him. It’s why there were so many people who deeply cared about Ash. Eiji, and Max and Skip and Shorter, and Sing, and his entire gang, and Cain, and why someone like Yut-Lung didn’t really have anyone who cared about him, except I suppose Blanca and Sing to an extent, but not with nearly the level of real love and respect Ash garnered. Not with nearly the same loyalty. And that’s also why both Sing and Blanca sided with Ash eventually, against Yut-Lung. As deep a capacity for cruelty and petty envy as Yut-Lung had, Ash had an equal capacity for kindness and love. He just doesn’t realize it about himself because he’s been manipulated into thinking the opposite, and because he was so savagely abused and put into such nightmarish circumstances, that he had to do awful things just to keep living. And that’s a massive tragedy. That Ash is the only one who won’t forgive himself for having to do the things he’s done, despite the very real and justified reasons for those actions, is further testament to the goodness in his heart. Ash can’t and won’t give himself a break, can’t and won’t forgive himself for it, even as everyone around him tells him he should. Because Ash always was and always would have been a good kid, with a good heart, who understood from the beginning the awful reality and seriousness of taking another life. He understood that in a way Dino and Yut-Lung and even Blanca never did. Those things were always going to weight him heavily down with awful, crushing guilt and remorse. He hated himself for having done it, and saw himself as worthless because of it. He was never what the others thought of him as. He was never this “prince of darkness”, never this demon, or devil. He was just a young boy trying desperately to survive.
It’s Eiji who sees that about Ash, where everyone else fails to. Even Shorter doesn’t understand in the beginning of the story why Ash lets those guys go who tried to kill him. Even Shorter, I don’t think, understands the toll that killing takes on Ash. It’s Eiji, and only Eiji, who sees Ash for who he really is. It’s why he’s the only one Ash can actually be himself around. The only one who LETS Ash be himself. Why it’s only around Eiji that we see Ash really able to genuinely smile, and relax, and let down his guard. Because he knows Eiji isn’t going to try and make him into something he’s not, doesn’t see him as something he’s not, and isn’t going to try and get something from him. Who isn’t going to try and control him, or mold him into what they want him to be, or what they think he should be. He understands why Ash acts the way he does, why he does the things he does, and he doesn’t judge him or condemn him for it. He accepts it, and tries to help Ash forgive himself and love himself.
Even without Eiji coming into his life, I don’t think Ash ever would have become like Dino, Yut-Lung, Foxx or Blanca. I don’t think Ash ever had the capacity to become a monster like them. His heart was always too big, and he always cared too much, felt too much, to become that. What Eiji did give Ash, which Ash never had before, was the knowledge of what it is to be loved. He gave Ash a sense of what it was to be treated like a human being, not an object to be admired, or a weapon to be used. He acknowledged that Ash had feelings. That he had emotions and thoughts of his own. He treated him like he MATTERED. He didn’t make Ash human, because Ash was always human. He didn’t give Ash morality, because Ash always had morality. But he was the only one who saw those things about Ash, where everyone else failed to, even Ash himself. And because he could see that about Ash, he was the only one who ever made Ash feel like a normal boy. The only one who ever made Ash feel like who he really was. The only one who ever allowed Ash to BE who he really was.
So much agreed with all of this.
Unlike some people seem to believe, Ash was never really cold nor ruthless and only changed his behaviour after meeting Eiji like a typical shoujo trope. Ash had always been caring and nice deep down, he just tried to hide it in order to not break and protect himself as Eiji mentioned and which you pointed out as well. But still, he couldn’t completely hide it like in the scenes you already referred to with Ash sparing the two who sided with Dino in the first episode or the scene with him having to go back into the facility to save Max and Ibe. It’s impossible for him not to care and even though he was so keen on leaving them behind but within seconds, he changed his mind to: “Nope. Can’t leave them.”
I won’t list all of the examples where his caring and loving side is shown since you already did a great job at listing petty much all of them ^^ I think they really show how Ash was already human right from the start and not Eiji being the one turning him into one throughout the story.
The reason for him having been able to stay human and still care for people and not go down the path of hatred like Yut Lung did is him having been surrounded by people who cared for him as well. During his childhood, he had Griffin with him and like any little brother, I can imagine Ash wanting to be like his big brother who seemed to be of a very kind nature after all. Later on, he had Shorter who wasn’t afraid to call him out on certain behaviour and became a close friend of him:
But even Shorter had a different perception of him at first and even seemed to be afraid of him in some sense:
Fearing or admiring Ash were the two extremes most people seem to have felt towards him, there was no in-between. Always seeing either a god or the devil. But never a human.
Eiji was the exception. Right from the start he seemed to sense something about Ash, unlike others. He was never afraid of him nor admired him. He just simply saw him as a human and this already got clear the moment he asked for his gun. Ash was used to people only ever taking something from him without considering his feelings or caring about him. And suddenly, there’s this boy asking politely for consent to hold his gun, not seeming to be afraid of him at all and not even starting to after asking if he had ever killed people which Ash confirmed. Ash had called him a “baby” then, but I think, more than anything, he was actually irritated by Eiji’s treatment of him because he simply wasn’t used to it.
I think the point where Eiji really caught the first real glimpse of how Ash was really deep down inside was the scene where Ash gave up his gun to Arthur because he threatened to kill him otherwise. Eiji looked so surprised when he did that, as if he hadn’t expected that at all. After all, he was just a stranger. They had no connection, yet. It made no sense for Ash to give up the gun he didn’t allow anyone to touch in first place just for him if he already wasn’t kind at heart from the start, so Eiji must have realized that there was more to him than what meets the eye. And the more the story progressed, the more he saw that this was indeed true or rather, Ash was feeling comfortable enough to let him see that side of him. The side of the boy he actually was deep down inside, the side of Aslan.
So if we consider “Ash” and “Aslan” not only being two different names but also two different sides of him – “Ash” being the cold and ruthless appearing gang leader and “Aslan” being the caring and goodhearted boy – then it gets clear that most characters only ever saw “Ash” and maybe just a little glimpse of “Aslan”, if they were lucky. However, Eiji saw both sides of him and most importantly, he accepted and loved both of them. That’s also how I interpret his words in GoL about loving both, light and darkness:
Eiji saw and witnessed how undeniably human Ash was through and through. Saw how fragile he could be, how sometimes that thick wall he had built around himself was sometimes crumbling, how hurt and lonely he was.
So many people tried to tear Ash’s humanity away from him, tried to turn him into a monster, tried to make him think he had no other choice than being or becoming anything else than that.
And then there was Eiji feeling drawn to him precisely because of how human he was. Only ever treating him like a human and never expecting anything in return. Just loving him for himself and not in a twisted way like Dino did. And that was the reason Ash felt drawn to him as well.
Eiji’s role in the story is to show him that he’s deserving of love despite of what he’s done, despite of what he thought he was and also to remind him of his existing humanity. Because even though we and Eiji can see how human he was, it still doesn’t mean Ash also saw himself as that. For him, he was an unredeemable monster, a leopard that could never climb down the mountain ever again. After all he’s been through, it’s understandable that he sometimes began to lose sight of his own humanity. So Eiji stepped in and reminded him of it, just like did during the leopard scene:
Just like you said, Ash was already human, Eiji didn’t magically turn him into one but he kept reminding him of his humanity and also protected his soul. If Eiji hadn’t been there after Griffin’s and Shorter’s death, maybe Ash had pushed people away instead of letting them in because he would have been too afraid of people getting hurt again due to them having gotten too close to him. He would have been all alone with his grief and regret (imagine how episode 11 would have been without Eiji comforting Ash).
Thanks to Eiji, he had a sanctuary where he knew he was safe and could be himself, be human, could let himself fall and be vulnerable, being provided with normalcy, like you said. And importantly, with this normalcy, he took away Ash’s loneliness. The loneliness that was always surrounding him because everyone failed to see this human side of him and his pain. Because everyone saw him as “Ash”, the façade the world forced him to put up in order not to break, or because he couldn’t show this side of him to them since otherwise, they would have taken advantage of it.
The only one being able to see and notice that there was also another side to him was Eiji. The one Ash didn’t push away but instead allowed to see this side of him.
And by allowing that, he basically gave Eiji a part of his heart and soul which still kept on remaining with him even after Ash’s death.
Thank you so much for your insight @ash-in-the-rye !
It bothers me somewhat that people mistake Ash’s harsh attitude at the beginning of the story, or towards certain characters, as being who he really is, and that only being around Eiji is what returned some of his humanity. I’ve seen some comments lately that seem to express that. Like I saw one the other day that was almost vitriolic in it’s hateful tone, talking about how badly Ash treated Sing, and how it was really his fault that Yut-Lung started his war with him, because of how Ash told him he was going to kill him after what happened with Shorter. Like Ash is to blame for having such a visceral reaction after Yut-Lung blackmailed Shorter into the position he was in, and then Ash being forced into a position where he had to choose between Shorter’s life and Eiji’s. Who wouldn’t have reacted the way Ash did when Yut-Lung showed up to give him the key to his handcuffs? He’d just been forced to kill his best friend to save another friend. He’s been forced to watch Shorter lose his mind and try to kill Eiji. It would have been bizarre if Ash had had any other reaction to Yut-Lung at the point. He was devastated and completely justified in his rage over Yut-Lung’s betrayal. And then I’ve seen other comments like people saying Ash is a “pathological liar” who has no inner moral compass, and has to rely on cues for what’s right and wrong. I’m just kind of bemused by how anyone could view Ash in that way.
Like, it seems painfully obvious to me that Ash’s at times harsh and dismissive attitude is nothing but a front. A defense mechanism he’s built up in order to protect himself after a literal lifetime of suffering abuse and betrayal at the hands of almost everyone around him. Referencing the scene from “Angel Eyes” that you posted, Shorter calls Ash out on his manipulative behavior, and Ash kind of scoffs and asks “Yeah, what’s of it?”, But Ash does the exact same thing with Eiji in Banana Fish, when Eiji asks Ash if he’s the one that started the gang war going on in New York, and Ash gets this smirk on his face and asks “What if I did?”. Ash doesn’t react that way to Shorter or Eiji because he doesn’t understand what’s wrong with what’s happening. He doesn’t react that way because he can’t tell the difference between wrong and right. He reacts the way he does because, in reality, he’s completely devastated inside at having to do these things, and he hates himself for it, and feels almost unbearable guilt for it. He’s convinced himself that he feels nothing when he kills without realizing that’s not at all true. He thinks he’s an unfeeling monster, but what it really is, is that he simply forcing his emotions down beneath his consciousness when he kills because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to do it, and he knows if he can’t kill, he himself is going to die. People will see how much it hurts him to do the things he has to in order to survive, and use that against him, and if he hesitates in a moment of decision, where it’s his life or the other guys, he’ll die. He HAS to be cold about it, because if he lets his emotion start to dictate his actions, he’ll doubt his actions, and that will be the end for him. So he crushes his emotion down and forces himself to operate like a machine. And then of course afterward, after he gets through with it, he’s again wracked by guilt and pain. He never lost sight of his morality. He never started to lose his understanding of right and wrong. He only learned to control it because, otherwise, he knew, he wouldn’t last in the world of crime and violence he was thrown into as a young kid. He acts apathetic about it precisely because he’s actually anything but. Because he’s actually so torn up about it, and weighed down by doubt, and slowly but surely it’s degrading his mental health and self-esteem, until we meet him in the story, and his self-loathing is almost total. It’s ironic, because underneath it all, he has a good heart, and he doesn’t want to hurt anybody and he just wants to be left alone, and it’s exactly for that reason that it torments him as much as it does. But then, nobody will leave him alone, will they? People keep trying to hurt him, to use him and force him to do things he doesn’t want to do. To take and take from him constantly, without ever stopping to consider that he’s a person with thoughts and feelings of his own. They treat him instead like an object that exists solely for their pleasure and to do with as they see fit. He doesn’t want to do the things he does, but he’s forced to in order to survive, and as the only means he knows of to protect himself from further abuse and to keep people who want to abuse him away from him, he adopts this dismissive, uncaring and cold-hearted attitude. He does’t want anyone to see that he’s really tormented inside about it all because it would be exposing his vulnerability to them then, and would then give them an in to attacking and hurting him even more. He pushes people away by acting like he doesn’t care because he doesn’t know any other way to protect himself. Everyone in his life has either failed him, like his father, or outright abused and manipulated him, and taken everything from him without consent of any kind. So when Ash, even in that scene with Shorter from “Angel Eyes”, acts apathetic, that isn’t how he really feels at all. It’s just the only way he knows how to act to keep himself safe, because he’s never been shown any other way. All of the adults in his life have only ever shown him that he should expect cruelty and pain from them, and so he reacts with that expectation in mind. They don’t care about him, so he acts like he doesn’t care about them, or what they do to him, and turn around then becomes fair play. If they’re going to use him, he’s going to use them right back. But Ash never feels okay about that. He’s never alright with it. He struggles with it and torments himself with guilt over it. He has no desire or wish to act this way, but he doesn’t have a choice if he wants to keep surviving. And again, he can’t let those same people see that it bothers him, because they’ll only use that fact against him and try to use it to manipulate him and hurt him. You know what they say about the best way to fight a bully is. To show that their bullying doesn’t affect you. To show it doesn’t hurt you. If you don’t give them a reaction, then they’ll stop. That’s what Ash is doing. He’s not giving them a reaction in the hopes that they’ll stop. And I just am confused that some people don’t seem to get this about him.
The same thing with his treatment of Sing at the beginning. He’s so harsh towards Sing because he’s trying to PROTECT him and Sing’s gang. He doesn’t want Sing to get involved, and he doesn’t want Sing to tell his gang about what really happened with Shorter, because then they’d be roped into the war Ash was waging with Dino, and become targets of Dino. He isn’t mean to Sing because he’s a hateful asshole. He’s mean to Sing because it’s the only way he knows how to protect him. By pushing him away from himself and the danger of his world and life. It’s actually an incredibly selfless act, heartbreaking in it’s selflessness, really.
I think Ash always had a strong moral conscience and healthy understanding of right and wrong. It’s why, also, Ash has always known that the sexual abuse he suffered wasn’t his fault. That he wasn’t “asking for it”, the way his abusers try to claim. But it’s also why he won’t give himself any kind of break for killing people, no matter how justified he was in it. So yeah, I don’t think Eiji gave Ash his humanity, or his good heart. I think Ash always had those things. But I think Eiji gave Ash permission to show those parts of himself without fear of consequences. Without being afraid they would be used against him. He knew, around Eiji, he never had to be afraid to be who he really was. And that’s what makes their relationship so poignant and powerful. Ash never had to play a role with Eiji. He could just be who he really was, which was a sweet kid with a big heart.
You’re welcome @cosmicjoke ^^
I wonder when and how Ash was treating Sing in a harsh way, though? How could anyone seriously criticize that? Because of how he was pretty cold towards him when they first met? Seriously, that was understandable since Ash was really pissed in that moment. Think about it. Just not that long ago, he had to kill his best friend and he just had found said best friend’s corpse lying on a table with his brain having been removed and the only thing he could do was burn him, causing him to have a breakdown:
And then a kid shows up, thinking he could fight against him, challenging him. Ash even warns him beforehand that he’s currently in a bad mood:
And even a second time when Sing is still not leaving him alone:
Anyone would be annoyed with that when they had just went through hell and were just tired and still mourning their best friend. Ash didn’t want to be rude nor harsh, he was just really not in the mood for this.
Or was it about when Ash slapped Sing on the roof after his return from the facility? Okay, that may have been an overreaction of him, but still, Ash tried to get his point across that he’s not allowed to tell anyone the truth about Shorter’s death under any circumstances since otherwise, people would only want to take revenge and get themselves killed in the process. Again, it was a portrayal of Ash caring about other people and not wanting for anyone to die such a meaningless death. Besides, they were Shorter’s people so maybe Ash even did it for him because he knew he wouldn’t want his people to get hurt.
Anyway, regarding the complaint about Ash treating Sing in a harsh way, let’s all not forget who saved Sing’s life two times:
About Ash threatening Yut Lung…Considering that he had tricked them all, blackmailed Shorter with the life of his sister, helped in kidnapping him and Eiji which eventually led to Shorter’s death, it’s understandable that Ash said he’s gonna kill him. It may not have been Yut Lung’s idea, but he still helped and didn’t seem to care that much about the possible consequences. Besides, Yut Lung even seemed to welcome getting killed by Ash so maybe he even wished for it.
Ash being a “pathological liar”…When did Ash ever really lie for no reasonable reason? I can only recall the times where he hid things like when he didn’t tell Eiji he was going back to Golzine but come on, I don’t even need to explain why he did that. There were times where he lied when being manipulative towards his enemies, but who would hold that against him?
I also always had the feeling that Ash seeming to not care about having killed Arthur’s boys during the conversation with Eiji was just an act because it seemed so contradictory to what he thought about it just moments ago:
Just like you said, he puts on an act in order to protect himself, in order to appear collected and tough. The thing is, Eiji didn’t buy it. He kept calling him out on his behaviour and even told him outright that he’s not the Ash he knows:
That’s when Ash’s act was gone completely, that’s when he knew it doesn’t work, knew that Eiji sees through him and instead of continuing, he just snapped and stormed off.
Because in that moment, he must felt so exposed with his fragile and vulnerable self lying bare.
Totally agree @ash-in-the-rye Your points about the way Ash acts towards Sing when they first meet are spot on. When you consider what Ash had just been through, not only having to kill Shorter to save Eiji, and then having to see Shorter’s mutilated corpse, but also just having gotten through killing the man who had killed Griff and basically been directly responsible for how Shorter ended up, then you get this cocky 14 year old kid coming in, cussing Ash out and challenging him to a death match. Ash could have KILLED Sing right then and there, but of course, he didn’t. He tried to get Sing to just leave him alone and go away, but Sing wouldn’t listen, and kept insisting, so Ash had no choice but to make him understand by showing him he could kill him if he wanted. The fact Ash even showed as much restraint as he did after the trauma he had just suffered speaks volumes about his character, really.
And yeah, again, with Sing on the rooftop, he was harsh, but it was because he was trying to protect Sing and his gang. The thing people forget about Ash is that, he’s been treated so harshly and cruelly by everyone in his life up to that point, that he really doesn’t know any other way to be himself. He cares deeply about people, but the only way he’s ever learned to protect them is by pushing them away from himself, and he already thinks so little of himself, that he thinks the best way to do that is to make people hate him. So he plays up this image he has of being a cold, heartless jerk, and acts like an asshole sometimes, so that people will stop trying to get near him. It’s both a defense mechanism for himself, and a means of trying to protect those he cares for. He doesn’t want Sing to get involved with Dino, because he would be endangering his own life and the lives of his gang members. Ash wasn’t mean to Sing because he’s just a mean jerk. He’s mean to him because it’s the only way he knows how to protect people. It’s the same as what we saw early on in the story, when Ash first tries to get Eiji to go back to Japan. He tells Eiji bluntly that he’s going to get in the way and slow them down. On the surface, it seems like a mean, unkind thing to say. Even Max gets angry at Ash for saying it. But Ash only says it because he doesn’t want Eiji to get hurt, and he knows he will if he sticks around. He’s trying to protect him, again, in the only way he knows how, by pushing him away. Even then, Ash isn’t able to be entirely dismissive of Eiji, telling him he isn’t useless, and reminding him that he saved his life. I mean, Ash is the opposite of mean. A truly mean-spirited person would be unkind and cruel just to hurt someone. For the sole purpose of hurting someone, and getting to see them hurt. Ash is only ever harsh with his words and actions with Sing or Eiji or anyone he truly cares about because he’s trying to protect them, not hurt them.
And yeah, Yut-Lung’s actions are what directly led to Ash threatening him. Seeing it any other way seems bizarre and even deluded. Even then, after Ash escapes with Eiji from the compound, we see his threat was actually idle, because he never actually goes directly after Yut-Lung again. In fact, it’s the opposite. Yut-Lung goes directly after Ash, and only then do we see Ash actually attack Yut-Lung, when he literally has no choice. And it isn’t an attack born out of revenge, but because he needs to get Eiji and his own gang members released from Yut-Lung’s own men. There’s even a point after Yut-Lung’s betrayed Ash and Shorter, when Ash says to Eiji that he can’t figure out if Yut-Lung is a friend or a foe. You sense absolutely no actual malice from Ash towards Yut-Lung, despite everything Yut-Lung had done to him at that point. Unlike Yut-Lung, who viciously goes after Ash, simply out of a jealous rage over the fact that Ash has a person in Eiji who cares about him.
And great point about Ash and how he rarely tells lies at all throughout the story, and only in circumstances where, again, he’s either trying to protect someone, like Eiji, from the truth, because he doesn’t want him to get hurt, or because he has to in order to stay alive. An actual pathological liar would be someone who can’t STOP lying, about ANYTHING. They’re someone who lies without any sense of qualm and without any real reason. Ash only lies because he has a good reason to. Again, like almost all of Ash’s actions, either out of self-defense, or out of defending others. Ash’s intent is never to just hurt someone out of malice.
And that ties into the scene between him and Eiji, where Ash is trying to act callous and uncaring about what’s going on with Arthur’s gang. We KNOW Ash is putting up an act here because of the preceding scene you mentioned, where he’s dwelling on and tortured by his actions. He feels like a monster, and he hates himself. At the same time, he knows he has to do what he’s doing in order to protect himself and his gang, because Arthur would just kill all of them if given the chance, as he’s proven he’s capable of time and time again. Ash was forced to go on the offensive, because Arthur wouldn’t just let it go, and kept trying ruthlessly to kill Ash and his crew. Ash is ridden with a feeling of guilt and remorse over his actions against Arthur’s gang, but if he allows himself to focus on those feelings, he knows he won’t be able to do what needs to be done in order to survive, and that’s why he snaps at Eiji and argues with him, because Eiji is basically shoving Ash’s sense of guilt in his face and chastising him for his actions, forcing him to think about his bad feelings over his actions. Ash knows if he keeps dwelling on it and being forced to think about how it really makes him feel, he won’t be able to make himself go through with it. The thing is, it isn’t just Ash’s life on the line in this situation. The lives of his gang members are on the line too, and if Ash is weak, and gives into his sense of guilt, they’re lives will be forefit, along with his. Ash tells Eiji that it isn’t about logic or reasoning out there on the streets, it’s about strength, and if he shows weakness by refusing to fight back, he’ll be killed, and so will the other kids who have chosen him to lead and protect them, and Ash is actually right, which is why I think Eiji feels bad later on about what he said. Ash is actually crushed by his sense of guilt and remorse, but for the sake of his own life and the lives of his crew, he can’t let it dictate his actions. Ash is basically stuck between a rock and a hard place, because he can’t win in this situation. It’s either let his sense of morality guide him and not go after Arthur and his gang and basically wait for them to come and kill him and his own gang, or ignore his sense of morality in order to protect himself and his gang, but suffer the weight of his own remorse and despair at having to do these things. Ash’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t care, or is cold-hearted, his problem is that he cares TOO MUCH, and he’s constantly in a position where caring at all will get him and other people either hurt or killed. When Ash says to Eiji, and also to Shorter in that scene from Angel Eyes, “What would you know about it?”, he’s asking them if they’ve ever been in the kind of position he’s constantly in, where there’s only one of two choices to be made, either compromise your morals and survive, or don’t compromise them and get raped or killed for it. Eiji of course doesn’t understand because he’s never been in a position where it was either his life or someone else’. He’s lived a normal, even sheltered life where he never had to worry about making hard choices for his own survival. And Shorter doesn’t really understand Ash’s dilemma either, because he’s never been sexually abused and had to use his own sexuality as a means of protecting himself, either against being raped again, or as a means of taking back some control in an otherwise powerless position and situation. Still, Ash feels immense guilt and pain over it all, because he’s NOT okay with doing the things he’s doing, but he doesn’t have a choice if he wants to keep living and if he wants to protect himself from being further abused. He can’t afford to let himself be guided by his conscience, and he can’t afford to let himself dwell on his sense of remorse. Not if he wants to survive, and not if he wants those he cares about to survive. It’s of course easy to sit there and judge someone for doing bad things when you yourself have never had to do bad things simply to keep yourself alive, or take back some control from the people who would otherwise thoughtlessly and without hesitation use up every part of you until there was nothing left.
I think that fact is realized by Eiji eventually, and that’s why he says that he’ll love and accept both the light and the dark in Ash. Because he realizes that Ash has lived a life where he didn’t really have any good or better choices, that he was forced into a position where all his choices were robbed from him before he’d even reached adolescence, or could even really form a complete understanding of what was happening to him.
Again, a great analysis of basically everything and a big “YES” from me to everything you said @cosmicjoke ^^
Pushing people away, being harsh to them even though they could hate him afterwards is really the only way Ash sees in order to protect them. Another thing of which I think is really important regarding the scene with him telling Eiji to go home, that he’s only a burden to them etc. is what happens right after it:
He just had been mean to Eiji, had hurt his feelings by telling him really harsh things he didn’t even mean just to protect him, had told him out right to go away. And he obviously can’t handle how he had just treated him so he’s resorting to alcohol to drink away his bad conscience.
Even Max notices the reason behind it right away:
Again, in the end, it’s just an act which is a big contradiction to how Ash really feels deep inside.
Yeah, that scene is a great case in point. Ash is only unkind because he sees himself as dangerous and his life as dangerous, and so he tries to keep people away from him, and the best and easiest way to do that is to make himself seem unlikable. Even during the conversation with Eiji, Ash can’t bring himself to be outright unkind, like I said, telling Eiji he isn’t useless, but even still, the guilt it leaves Ash feeling afterward is enough to drive him to drink. Ash shuts off is feelings when he has to do something bad because otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to do it, and if he can’t do it, he won’t survive, or other people will get killed. But that switch he’s able to flip in that moment flips back as soon as it’s done, and all the regret and pain comes crashing down on him. He’s constantly living in this state where he’s pushed into corners where he has to fight his way out using any means available to him, constantly having to fight for his life and his body, forced to do things he hates doing in defense of himself and others, and then afterward, because his moral conscience is so strong, having to suffer through the sense of guilt and self-blaming and self-hatred that comes with making those decisions. He can’t escape it, and it’s ironic, because it actually speaks to how good a person he is, that he can’t just square it with himself, or make excuses for himself, or justify it to himself. He can’t reconcile how he really feels with what he HAS to do in order to survive. He tries, because he can feel himself going insane with it, knows that if he can’t repress his emotions, it will eventually destroy him, either get him killed or drive him mad, but he still can’t do it. He can’t make himself feel nothing, even as he fears he doesn’t. Ash starts to conflate his coping mechanism of pushing his emotions out of his consciousness with actually BEING emotionless, which is so heartbreaking, because he lets his confusion here confirm to him his sense of self-loathing. He convinces himself he’s a monster, even as, ironically, it’s the very guilt he feels over forcing his emotions down that frightens him so badly, worsens his sense of guilt even more, and makes him feel like the beast everyone claims he is, when in fact he’s the opposite, unable to separate his actions from his sense of morality, unable to assuage the pain of his guilt with logical justifications for his actions.
Contrast that with the other characters we see in Banana Fish who also kill to stay alive. Like Sing, Cain, even Shorter. None of them suffer from the same sense of self-loathing and self-deprecation that Ash does. All of them have a much healthier and more balanced view of themselves and what they’ve done. They excuse themselves for it because they know if they wanted to keep living, they had no choice. They don’t blame themselves, or hate themselves for it. They aren’t shown being tormented or suffering over the lives they’ve taken. They move on quickly from it without ever really thinking about it again. And we see that too, in post canon, where all of them eventually move on to lead normal, happy, healthy lives, where they aren’t crippled by their pasts. But not Ash. We constantly see Ash just ragging on himself and torturing himself over the lives he’s taken and the things he’s done, constantly referring to himself as a monster or a brute or a lowlife, constantly hating himself. Cain even begs Ash to stop giving himself such a hard time, trying to convince him that he’s a good friend and a good boss, but it doesn’t break through to Ash. He can’t see himself that way. It actually speaks volumes about the strength of Ash’s moral character, that to him, taking a life is no trivial matter. That taking a life is an extremely serious, and tragic thing. Even the other characters who are obviously good and kind, again, like Sing, Cain and Shorter, don’t seem to recognize the true tragedy of taking another person’s life. They don’t feel it in the same way Ash does. I think that also has to do with Ash’s intelligence. It’s a case of his own intelligence working against him. He’s too smart, and because of that, he feels things more deeply than others. Is more sensitive than others. Again, it’s ironic, since everyone except Eiji views Ash as this ice man, cold-hearted killer. He’s anything but. He’s the most sensitive and fragile hearted one of all.
One more thing to add to that last point, and again I think this says it all. Near the very end, when Ash and Blanca meet one last time, and Blanca asks Ash if he’s heard from Sing about Yut-Lung, and they get into the discussion about how Blanca taught Ash never to go easy on an enemy, and Ash says he never learned how to do that. Blanca responds by saying “I was told that was one thing I never needed to teach you”, which reveals so well how Ash never needed to be taught to go easy on his enemies, because that was something he always did. Something some might even say caused him trouble. He never needed to be taught that, because he was always innately soft hearted. Ash jokingly calls Sing a soft touch, but you can tell he’s just putting on airs when he says “Not like me.”, again assuming the role of the tough guy. His smile says it all in that moment. He knows it’s not true, and so does Blanca. Like a private joke between them. I think that’s something Blanca finally learned to accept about Ash. He initially came in and accepted Dino’s job to bring Ash back to him because he knew Ash’s soft heart, and knew if he continued outside of Dino’s control and was allowed to be with Eiji, he would get himself killed. But Blanca finally comes to accept that that’s what Ash would rather have happen, then be under the thumb of someone like Dino. That he “chose love”, as Blanca said, over hate. That that was what he wanted, even if it meant his dying. The reason Ash lets Eiji go in the end isn’t because he doesn’t want that love in his life. It’s because even if he’s okay with Eiji being his undoing, he isn’t okay with being Eiji’s. So he lets him go. Further proof, again, of his soft heart. The very fact then that Ash promises not to go after Yut-Lung as long as Yut-Lung doesn’t go after him is further testament still to that. Even after all Yut-Lung did to him. Ash never intended to kill him. Not unless he had to. I think Ash felt that way about all his enemies. That’s just who Ash always was. A sweet kid, with a kind heart, who found himself inescapably thrust into a world of violence and pain.
@ tantei-armin Those are great points too! Ash did have people he grew close to before Eiji. All those you mentioned, because yeah, that’s just who Ash was. He was always a sweet, kind hearted person, despite it all, which is why I agree he never would have turned out like Yut-Lung, but I also agree if Yut-Lung had had people in his life to care for him, he could have turned out kinder himself. Yut-Lung shows his own remorse at points throughout the story. I think a major difference between him and Ash also though, is that Yut-Lung uses the unfairness of his life as an excuse to hurt people who have never hurt him, while Ash would never do something like that. Ash never hurts anyone who didn’t first hurt him, or try to hurt him or someone he cared about. I think Ash was always just inherently kinder than Yut-Lung.
Your points about Ash always having love in his heart, and always loving, are excellent. Ash never did close himself off, or become uncaring towards people, despite everything that happened to him. Yut did, and let his hate for his brothers become his purpose for living. Ash always cared deeply for the people around him who were his friends. He never didn’t, even when he tried for his own sake. Even when he tried to convince himself he shouldn’t care, he never could bring himself to.
I love your point about that moment when The Fly is selling Ash guns, and about the revolver, and why we learn Ash uses it. He doesn’t want to kill any more than he absolutely has to. Killing isn’t something he even remotely enjoys, or takes satisfaction in. In fact, the exact opposite. He hates it. He doesn’t want to kill anyone period, but he doesn’t have a choice if he wants to stay alive, and if he wants to protect the people around him. So he tries to put a limiter on himself by refusing to use automatic weapons, if he can help it. But it also shows how skewed Ash’s own perception of himself is, that he thinks he needs a revolver to control himself, when he demonstrates time and time again that he doesn’t need anyone but himself to keep his killing to a minimum. He believes what everyone tells him about himself, that he’s this out of control animal, or a monster, or a demon, and it erodes away at his trust in himself. It’s so sad. Even the one moment where we do see Ash lose a little bit of control of himself, after Eiji gets shot, even then, he doesn’t lose control of himself completely, because we see Lao come at him with a gun, because he thinks he’s going to shoot Sing. If Ash was really this out of control monster, he would have shot Lao dead in that moment in a rage fueled insanity. But he didn’t. He shot Lao in the hand. He only disarmed him. And we all know he wasn’t ever going to shoot Sing. As soon as Sing jumped in front of him, Ash stopped shooting. It just makes Ash’s inability to see the goodness in himself all the sadder, when you realize it’s because everyone’s always told him he’s a monster, or an animal, and he just accepts it and believes it, because he’s been treated like an animal his entire life. The story does such a superb job of showing the true damage caused to a person who’s been severely abused as a child. Ash has been treated like trash his whole life, and so he’s come to think of himself as trash. The greatest tragedy of all is that the exact opposite is true. Like you so excellently point out, Ash’s heart was always open to his friends, like Skip and Shorter and of course his brother Griff. And he inspired the kind of loyalty he did from his gang not just because of his leadership abilities, but because Ash always treated them like they mattered. Always put them before himself. He never acted superior, or like he mattered more. I think even Kong says at one point, or maybe it’s Alex, that any time there’s a really dangerous job, or situation, Ash would always go to handle it by himself, leaving his gang out of it entirely. Ash inspired such loyalty because he was always putting other’s well being before his own, further proof still of his innate goodness and kindness.
So, I just finished my read through of Banana Fish. Yes, I cried my eyes out. I then finally got around to reading Angel Eyes all the way through for the first time, and man, what an awesome side story. There’s so much to talk about from it, and so much to explore, but there’s something really specific I noticed, which I think ties into the above discussion, and which also relates to the last conversation we see between Ash and Blanca.
In the first three quarters of Angel Eyes, Ash comes across as very cold, as very unfeeling, and even frightening. Even Shorter at one point is so scared of Ash that he doesn’t want anything to do with him. Of course, by the end of the story, we realize his cold demeanor was, again, a total front. A wall put up to keep people away from him, including Shorter, because he seriously doesn’t know who he can trust. He’s wary of Shorter precisely because Shorter’s being nice to him, and nobody’s ever been nice to Ash for no reason. Ash is only going by his experiences in life to inform his decisions. His experiences tell him that anybody being nice to him is doing it because they want something from him. This, coupled with Frankie essentially submitting to Shorter’s demand that he stop harassing Ash at the beginning, and Ash’s having already pegged Frankie as an assassin, naturally makes Ash even more suspicious of Shorter. Eventually of course he realizes, after talking to Shorter and asking him if Frankie is part of his crew, that that’s not the case. But he still doesn’t trust Shorter. He still keeps him at a long distance and doesn’t tell him anything about himself. Well, why would he? He’s just met him a week ago and Ash’s life experiences tell him he can’t trust anybody.
Well, the thing I wanted to really talk about here, and I think this is a prime example of how it is that Ash was never this ruthless, cold-hearted killer, is the moment directly following the fight between Ash and Frankie, where Ash very nearly kills him. He only doesn’t because Shorter shouts at him as he’s charging Frankie with the pool cue and distracts him enough with that that Ash messes up his aim. Shorter runs after Ash afterward to thank him for “going easy” on Frankie, and we see Ash start to laugh, seeming almost demonic in his reaction as he explains to Shorter that he didn’t “go easy” on Frankie. He meant to kill him. Of course, when we later realize that Ash knew Frankie meant to kill him, his own intent to kill makes more sense. But there’s a very important bit of dialog between Ash and Shorter afterward, which speaks volumes about who Ash really is inside.
He thanks Shorter, and then starts saying “So that’s it. Deflect it slightly at the last second. I didn’t DECIDE to go easy on him. But now I finally know how.” He says I “finally” know how.
Now lets take this back for a moment to Ash’s last conversation with Blanca in the park, when they start talking about how Blanca never taught Ash how to go easy on an enemy. He says to Blanca “”Never let your enemy escape alive.” You’re the one who taught me that. I never learned how to go easy on someone I’m fighting.” And then Blanca replies, while smiling fondly, “That’s because I was told there was no need to teach you that.”.
These two pieces of conversation taken together tell us everything about Ash, and his attitude towards the idea of having to kill, even for reasons as justifiable as self-defense.
Blanca taught Ash how to kill with the efficiency of a professional hit man. He taught him how to react and kill in the quickest, easiest and most efficient way possible. He never taught him how to hold back once he was in the midst of a fight. Once he got going, he would become a killing machine, so to speak. And we see this from Ash throughout the series. Once he starts fighting someone with the intention to kill them, he goes through with it with frightening precision and effectiveness. Blanca never taught Ash how to simply incapacitate an opponent using a deadly weapon, he never taught Ash how to only maim, instead of kill. All of his lessons were geared towards showing Ash how to take the life of an enemy, nothing more, nothing less. Dino didn’t want Ash to carry out threats or warnings. He wanted him as a hit man. But Blanca’s words to Ash, that he was told he never needed to teach Ash how to go easy on an enemy, tells us that someone, Dino most likely, told Blanca that Ash was already too soft-hearted and too merciful, and that he shouldn’t bother with teaching Ash anything but how to kill. Dino wanted to use Ash as a weapon, to carry out hits for him. He didn’t have any use for Ash’s own ambivalent feelings about killing. He didn’t care how Ash felt. He needed to mold him into the most effective weapon he could. We see Dino remind Ash, early on in the series, and in a mocking way, about how Ash always used to cry over every job Dino made him do. Ash never wanted to kill anyone, and it was an upsetting enough experience for him that it used to reduce him to tears. He didn’t want to do it, but Dino forced him into it, like he forced him into prostitution.
But let’s go back to what Ash says to Shorter. He says “But now I FINALLY know how.” What this tells us about Ash is that he WANTED to know how to pull back while fighting someone so that he didn’t kill them. He wanted to know how he could stop himself from always taking someone’s life if he happened to get into a physical altercation with them. He’s happy that he’s learned how to pull back in just this one way. He’s been trained only to know how to kill, but Ash hates killing. He only does it because he has to. And we know Ash never would have even tried to kill Frankie if Frankie hadn’t first tried to kill him. Even later on, Ash let’s Frankie go, when he could have killed him. Even here, we see Ash show mercy, despite this asshole and his crew just trying to murder him. It’s the same as Ash only seducing Ricardo as a means of getting Frankie to make a move and show his hand. Because Ricardo made clear his own intention to try and rape Ash. So Ash uses Ricardo’s intention to his own benefit in forcing Frankie’s hand and to find out who sent him to kill him. I don’t think Ash ever intended to “set Ricardo on Frankie and let him do his dirty work for him”, like Shorter accuses Ash of. Ash saw Frankie beat Ricardo’s ass earlier, when they got into a fight over him, so he knows Ricardo can’t take out Frankie. Ash wouldn’t ever send someone to do a job for him like that anyway, as we see in the main story line of Banana Fish. He takes care of his own business when someone’s after him specifically. He never sends his own boys to do it for him. He acts dismissive of Shorter’s accusation because, again, he’s putting up a front of cold-hearted detachment because that’s the only way he knows how to protect himself. By showing no emotion. Even Shorter basically tells him to utilize a form of this earlier in the story, when he advises Ash to let himself be raped if he gets caught, and to be as quiet and passive as possible. Ash already knows those sorts of tactics, obviously. By this point in his life though, he’s been raped so many times, he’s got more sophisticated means of getting through it. So he uses Ricardo as a mean of sussing out who it is that’s gunning for him on the outside. He’s using sex as a weapon, because it’s one of the few ways he has of defending himself. I think Ash starts crying and is so upset when Shorter says if he keeps manipulating people like that, he’ll be just like the assholes who try to hurt him, because that was never Ash’s intention. He was just trying to protect himself. He never wanted to control anybody, or hurt them, or dominate them. He only uses tactics like manipulation to try and keep himself from getting more hurt. He’s not trying to hurt anybody, or control them because he wants power over them. He’s trying to control what’s HAPPENING to him, and because what’s happening to him is being perpetrated by these bastards who want to rape him, the best way to control the situation is to control them. It isn’t some power play on his part, or born from some sick desire to dominate the other person. It’s the only way he has of protecting himself. He starts shaking and crying and gets so upset, because the last thing he wants is to be like the people who hurt him, and because he never did the things he did for the same reasons. It hurts him badly that Shorter thinks he could be like them at all. That he could be like that, or have that kind of twisted mindset. He doesn’t, and he never did. It’s just he was brought up in such an unforgiving and cruel world, that those sorts of things were the only means available to him of staying alive. He couldn’t say no, or fight them off, because that would just lead to his getting more hurt, either by the person doing it, or by Dino, or Marvin, or whoever had him on a leash. Like Ash later explains to Shorter, because he’s so good looking, guys are always trying to force him to have sex with them, and he only figured that it would make it easier on him, if he took the lead when guys made passes at him like that. If he takes the lead and makes these bastards happy, he can control what’s happening to him, at least to some extent. Shorter wonders then where Ash learned to do that. Well, the answer is obviously Club Cod. Ash HAD to learn to do that to keep himself from getting killed eventually. To keep himself from getting hooked on drugs and used up and destroyed, like most of the kids that ended up in that club. You can easily imagine that many of the “patrons” of that place were violent on top of their twisted sexual perversion, because those two things often go hand in hand. A lot of them probably physically hurt the kids there, were probably extremely violent with them. And we even see that happen to Ash in Private Opinion, when Blanca finds Ash in that motel room after he’s been raped by Marvin. His hands had been tied to the bed frame, and he had bruises all over him. He’s been beaten up on top of being raped. Ash obviously had to learn to “play nice” and be seductive just to keep the physical harm he suffered to a minimum. If he could make the men molesting and raping him think he was liking it, they were probably less likely to hurt him. If he “submitted” and pretended to like it, it played into their sick fantasies, and they wouldn’t be angry then, and they wouldn’t make it worse. Like Ash even says to Shorter, the guys who rape you aren’t doing it because they want to get laid. They’re doing it because they want to hurt you and dominate you and control you. The more you struggle, the angrier they get that you aren’t submitting to their will, the more violent they then become, the more brutal the rape. If they think they’ve tamed you and that they’ve broken you to their will, if you act receptive to their advances, then they’re satisfied, and they won’t hurt you more than what they think is “necessary”. It’s truly horrific.
But anyway, back to the scene between Shorter and Ash after the fight with Frankie. Shorter takes Ash’s laughing and words as a sign that the kid is crazy and dangerous. He thinks Ash is laughing because Ash is a lunatic who gets his kicks killing people. It’s a misinterpretation from Shorter. It’s after this interaction with Ash that he starts worrying that Ash is Arthur’s assassin, come to kill him. Ash is confused by Shorter’s sudden anxiety around him, as we see in the scene of them at night in their cell, when Ash gets up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water. Shorter tenses up in fear, thinking Ash is going to kill him. Ash smiles at Shorter and asks why he’s so tensed up, and then jokes, asking “You think I’m gonna rape you or something?” Ash then smiles at him again and says, in the friendliest tone we’ve seen Ash use on Shorter so far “G’night Shorter.”
Shorter looks completely confused, because it just doesn’t jibe with this picture he’s formed of Ash as this cold hearted killer that’s just waiting to pounce.
We see Shorter again later in the library, still worried that Ash might be the assassin, but then he realizes that he just doesn’t get that vibe off of Ash, and doesn’t sense that he’s got anything to do with Arthur. Which of course is true, and Shorter gets his first real glimpse of who Ash actually is, when he finds him in the stacks, sitting up on a ladder and just reading. It’s the first moment Shorter realizes that Ash looks just like the angel on his Christmas card, and we start to see Shorter’s fear of Ash dissipate in that moment.
The thing is, Shorter’s perception of Ash gets skewed for a while by the fear mongering of the other inmates. Nico, who we eventually realize is working with Frankie, is the first to stir it up, to start disseminating the idea that Ash is some kind of devil or demon, and that people should be wary of him. He spreads this ridiculous story that he claims his grandmother told him about this evil woman who came to her village and drove all the men insane and eventually drove them all to kill each other. Everyone laughs at first, because it’s an absurd story and Ash is just a kid. But after what happens with Frankie the first time, Nico doubles down on his fear mongering and won’t shut up about how Ash is the devil, and how he’s evil. He’s trying to turn the other inmates against Ash, because he’s with Frankie, and Frankie is working for Arthur. And eventually, even Shorter starts to get effected by all this talk, and starts to be afraid of Ash to a paranoid degree. Eventually Shorter realizes it’s just bullshit, and Ash really IS just a kid who’s just struggling to survive, and they become friends after that, and Ash no longer seems like this cold, emotionless and frightening devil, but just a cool kid he can shoot the breeze with and really talk to. By the end, they’re real friends, sharing jokes and laughing together. It’s only at the end of Angel Eyes that both we the reader and Shorter himself finally see the real Ash. Again, just this sweet kid who’s surviving in an uncaring and brutal world.
It also tells us everything about how it is Ash became the boss of his gang on the outside. Shorter remarks how, after the fight between Ash and Frankie’s crew in the library, everyone in the prison started treating him like a “Capo”, and that it made Ash really uncomfortable. We see again here how Ash never had any desire to become a boss, or to have any power over other people. Je never had any designs to that effect. Never any schemes to take over any gangs or territory on the outside. He’s even confused when Shorter starts talking about how clever Arthur was, in trying to nip the threat of Ash in the bud, because Arthur could see that Ash was the kind of kid that would naturally draw others to him and gain followers just by being there. So he gets Ash sent to reform school and then tries to have him killed there. Ash doesn’t even know what Shorter is talking about because he never had any intention himself of becoming a gang boss. He fell into it because of his natural abilities, and when he got out of reform school, he obviously had a whole group of street kids who saw him as their leader and wanted to follow him, and it obviously just snowballed from there, with Ash taking over Arthur’s territory, etc… But again, it stands as testament to how Ash never wanted this life at all. He never cared about money, or power, or control over the street gangs. Like he eventually tells Eiji, him being exceptional wasn’t something he ever wanted, because his gifts are what led him to eventually being thrust into a life of violence and crime which he detested and never wanted.
@sayaka19fan I’m going to respond this way, as it’s just too much trouble the way we’ve been doing it. Here’s your posts in italic for others to read, and I’ll respond to them below:
Perhaps “pathological” doesn’t sound like the right term. It’s not like he has no reason at all. What I mean is that Ash has a bad relationship with Truth. You said that he didn’t say to the Chinese guys why Shorter died to protect them… They Got involved in Ash’s war anyway without knowing the truth and you knows? That is perfect to discredit Sing as a leader to them.
sayaka19fan
Don’t assume that I think Ash should have told about Shorter’s death on the first occasion. I never said that. Sing was the new leader, planning not to inform him at all at any time was insane.
sayaka19fan
Insane if not ill-intended
sayaka19fan
I don’t think Eiji would ever call Ash a slut. And Ash hadn’t to talk about his relationship with Dino. He could simply talk about the present as it was: a bad joke from a lunatic mafia boss.
sayaka19fan
No matter how hard his past was, Ash could have helped Charlie but he preferred revenge on justice. Being caring isn’t the only value to be good people: even criminals have family to protect while slaughtering others.
sayaka19fan
I know you would say things like “Ash protected Eiji when he was a stranger”. It is probably the best argument you could think of. Eiji was a guest that Charlie untrusted to him. As a boss he couldn’t dismiss it like not his business. But he abandoned his men when they obeyed Dino’s orders.
sayaka19fan
He even said to Eiji that Arthur’s mistake was that he wanted to rule though terror. You can’t gain worthy followers like that. You need to care even if you personally don’t care. We can’t read Ash’s mind: this is why I think that both Ash caring because he has a golden heart and Ash caring for a selfish reason are possible interpretations. I am not rejecting your view. I think the manga was carefully made for both those views to cohabit.
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Ash lies when he has to. That’s what every single human being on the planet does, by the way. He lies either to protect people, himself, or to further a goal. Again, everybody does that. Lying is a survival mechanism. And Ash always uses it as such.
You can’t discount Ash’s past and the things he’s gone through when discussing the times Ash lies, because it then fails to understand the inherent reason for his doing so. Ash doesn’t trust people, because he’s never been given any reason to trust people. In fact, he’s been given every reason NOT to. Viciously abused since a very young age in truly the most horrific ways imaginable. So, in reaction to those experiences, Ash has closed himself off and purposefully pushes people away as a means of protecting himself. He keeps people at a distance, because experience tells him to let people close is to let people see his vulnerabilities, which they’ve proven to him time and time again they will not hesitate to take advantage of. Ash isn’t a pathological liar, or even a regular liar. He lies because he has to. If he didn’t, he would die, or get raped, again. You can’t fault him for that. You can’t hold that against him. He’s living in a world where letting the wrong person close to you can end in your demise. Where it isn’t at all guaranteed that you’ll live to see the next day, and one misstep could mean your life. So yeah, I don’t buy that Ash has a problem with the truth, or that he somehow has a problem with lying. He learned to lie, and to manipulate, as a means of survival, because he’s living in a seriously cut throat world where everyone around him is ready and willing to hurt him in any way they can. But see, Ash never lies to hurt anyone, or with the intention of hurting anyone. He lies to protect himself, and those he cares about, and always for a good reason.
Ash was loyal to Shorter, and at no point in the entire story does Ash display a desire to take over the Chinese’ turf, or anyone’s turf, for that matter. He tries to maintain his own turf, and that’s about it. He doesn’t try to muscle in on the Chinese, or the Blacks, or any other group we see in the story. He just wants to be left alone. And in Angel Eyes, it’s made clear that Ash never chose to become a boss, or ever even thought of becoming one. He’s confused and uncomfortable when the other inmates start treating him like some kind of Capo, and doesn’t know what Shorter is talking about when he says Arthur was trying to nip Ash in the bud because he knew he would be a threat one day. Other street kids just started following him because they saw how capable he was after how he handled Frankie, and by the time he got out, he had a gang who had essentially appointed him their leader. But he never had any intention of becoming a boss, never any schemes or plans to that effect, and to think or interpret it otherwise is, I think, willfully ignoring the text and framing, and is strangely ungenerous and uncharitable to Ash’s character, and very cynical. It’s projecting an intention onto the character that isn’t at all supported by the narrative, either in terms of writing, narrative structure, or artistic design.
To than assume that Ash didn’t want Sing’s gang to know why he had to kill Shorter was because he was looking to discredit Sing and take over his gang, is completely without evidence or merit. Ash never showed any ambition towards that kind of thing, and in fact, his respect and friendship towards Shorter was strong enough that you know he wouldn’t betray his memory by making a grab for power in the vaccum left by his absence. Secondly, there was no time at all for that kind of thing. Ash had his hands more than full with Dino and everything going on with Arthur, and trying to protect Eiji, etc… He’d gotten through with his war with Arthur, in which he very nearly died, and immediately following that ordeal, he ends up a prisoner in a mental hospital, where they’re planning on destroying his mind and turning him into a zombie. He barely escapes from there with his life, before then having to go back in to rescue Max and Ibe, again, something he didn’t have to do, something nobody would have even known about if he’d decided against risking his life again to do it, and which would have benefited him not to. Once more, this is irrefutable proof of Ash’s willingness to put others before himself. The opposite of selfish. But I digress. The point is, he goes through this entire, insane ordeal just to escape with his life from this horrible place, before going out in search of Eiji. Where, in that time, would Ash have had a moment to even think about making a move on Chinatown? And why would he? How would Ash even have the time or inclination to concern himself with taking over Chinatown when he was simply fighting for his life against Dino, and Arthur, and trying to figure out how to stop his plans with Banana Fish? When there was hardly even a moment to breathe in the midst of all the chaos going on around him? There’s no evidence to support that idea at all, or to show Ash as having that kind of mind set or intention when he tells Sing to keep the truth about Shorter’s death a secret. Again, to make that assumption, you would have to willfully ignore everything in the text, in the designs and expressions of the characters, in the narrative framing of events, in what we can infer from the subtext. It’s just not there.
And Sing’s gang only ended up getting involved because, again, Sing injected himself and his gang into the action when he showed up unannounced to Ash and Arthur’s fight. Ash didn’t expect him to be there, and he didn’t expect things to unravel the way they did, with Arthur’s men jumping him from the subway car and trying to blow him away. Sing basically forced his way into what was going on without Ash’s consent or desire for him to do so. He wanted to keep them out of it, because he knew if they got involved, there was a good chance they would get killed, and many of them did end up getting killed. Not only that, but once they were involved, there’s was more than one situation which arises in which Ash had to put himself in harms way and endanger his own life to help rescue members of Sing’s gang. A problem he wouldn’t have had to concern himself with if Sing had just done as he wished and stayed out of it. Ash was ultimately correct to be concerned.
Yes, Sing was the new leader of Shorter’s gang, but Ash didn’t know him at all. He didn’t even know who he was when he first met him, had never seen him before, didn’t recognize him. He had no loyalty or obligation to Sing. He wasn’t his friend, the way he had been Shorter’s, and had no reason to even trust him, considering he barely knew him. Again, past experience told Ash that he couldn’t really trust anyone. Why would he feel the need to explain to him what was going on, and why should he have even felt safe in the assumption that Sing was on his side? Especially after what happened to Shorter because he insisted on being involved too, Shorter being forced into a position where he had to betray Ash, why WOULDN’T Ash feel ambivalent about roping other people into his war with Dino at that point? When he knew, if he DID explain what was happening, just exposing Sing to that knowledge would make him a target of Dino’s? When it would then make Sing a potential weak point for Ash, the way Shorter and Eiji had been? Ash wouldn’t be able to just leave Sing or his gang in the lurch then, because he would have been directly responsible for exposing them to the threat in the first place, and Ash proves throughout the story that if he feels something is his fault, if he gets someone involved in trouble, he’ll do everything he can to help them out of it. Once more, as evidence by Sing and his gang’s eventual involvement, and Ash’s immediate willingness to lend his aid to them when they, like he feared, were targeted by Dino and his allies. Once again, Ash’s experiences told him that the best way to handle his business was to keep it self contained, and not involve others, because when he involved others, they got hurt, and they could be used as leverage against him. Dino held infinitely greater resources and power than any of the street gangs, and Ash knew that better than any of them. If Sing didn’t know about Banana Fish, then he couldn’t blab about it to anyone else, and he would never land on Dino’s radar. The narrative makes it more than clear what Ash’s intentions here are. Again, you can’t ignore things like narrative framing and subtext, when those things support how the actions happening in a story are being portrayed. If you do that, you could essentially call every hero in every story where we don’t have access to their inner thoughts all the time possibly suspect in their intentions, and twist every action of theirs to mean whatever you want it to mean, even if the framing of their actions is plainly meant to portray them in a positive light. Ash wants to protect Sing and his gang, and anyone else from getting involved. That’s apparent by Ash’s own expressions, his own actions, and his own past actions. He didn’t even want Shorter involved at first, but Shorter, just like Sing, refused to stay out of it.
And how was Ash supposed to know how Eiji was going to react to finding out what his relationship with Dino was? Of course Eiji would never call Ash a slut, but we see consistently throughout the story Ash’s fear that Eiji is going to start to think he’s a monster, that he’s going to think he’s pathetic, or disgusting. He wants Eiji to go back to Japan, not only because he’s trying to protect him, but also because he doesn’t want Eiji to see him do bad things. He doesn’t want to ruin Eiji’s perception of him. He even cries out to Eiji after his fight with Arthur “Go back to Japan! I don’t want you seeing me like this!”. Telling Eiji that Dino gave him the earring could imply any number of things to Eiji about Ash’s relationship with him, and none of them really good. Earrings are usually given as a romantic gesture. Boyfriends give their girlfriends jewelry, husbands give their wives jewelry. It implies in the object itself some sort of romantic connection, or sexual connection. Further, that earring basically represents to Ash everything he was trying to escape. Dino’s control, Dino’s perversion, Dino’s dominance of him. Dino was constantly lavishing expensive items on Ash as a power play, as a symbol of his ownership of him, and that earring is just another example of the same, twisted power games he’d always played with him. Why would Ash want to bring that up at all around Eiji? Why WOULDN’T he be reluctant to talk about something that left a bad taste in his mouth, and reminded him of how horrible his life was?
Charlie was a cop, Ash was a criminal. Ash had a bad relationship with the law, for obvious reasons. Ash had absolutely ZERO reason to trust the police on top of it all. His first experience with the police was back in Cape Cod, when he was seven years old, when the police blamed Ash for getting raped by his baseball coach, and refused to help him. Great start for helping Ash form a lifelong loyalty to official police “justice”. Then we see numerous examples of how the NYPD is in Dino’s back pocket, with plenty of corrupt officials and offiers on his pay role. We first see it in Angel Eyes, at the very beginning, when Gregory tells Dino that Ash was picked up by the cops, and asks if he wants him to get Ash out. That tells you that Dino holds enough sway with the police to get prisoners released from their custody when he wants them to be. Then he proceeds to get the police’s help in setting Ash up for Marvin’s murder. The lead detetive who collars Ash then proceeds to essentially torture him by making him sit there and watch video’s of him being raped by Marvin. Great trust building exercise there. From there, Dino has control over the DA, getting Ash sent to state prison, instead of Juvie, where he should have gone if due process was actually being followed. He has control over the warden of the state prison, who is working with Dino’s own incarcerated men to go after Ash and make him give up what he knows about Banana Fish. He instructs those men to kill Ash if Ash doesn’t give up his information. Yeah, Ash has a lot of reasons to believe that by complying with the law, justice will be served. That’s a joke. The police have given Ash every reason NOT to trust them. Jenkins even admits it at one point, commenting that it’s no wonder Ash doesn’t trust them at all. Beyond all of that, even if Ash had suddenly lost all of his vaunted intelligence and decided that, hey, I can trust the cops after all, he never would have gotten his revenge on Dino, either for Griffin’s death, or for any of the horrible things Dino had done to him, if he’d gone along with his parole. He never would have found out what Banana Fish was, or been able to stop Dino’s plans with it. Don’t forget, Ash knew Banana Fish had something to do with Griffin’s vegetable state, since it was the only thing Griffin was ever able to say after he came back from the war. Ash couldn’t just forget that, and drop it. He couldn’t just let go something which he knew had destroyed his brother’s life. If he’d helped Charlie out, as you say, all of that would have been impossible, and he would have just ended up going on trial, and likely convicted, again, corrupt cops in Dino’s pocket, for a crime he didn’t even commit. He would have ended up back in jail for the rest of his life, while Dino ran roughshod over the city and country.
As for Ash “abandoning” his men after they betrayed him to Dino, Ash kicked those men out of the gang, because again, experience told Ash that once a traitor, always a traitor. People capable of betraying you once only prove their capacity for it in the first place, auotmatically making them untrustworthy. If he’d allowed them to stay, they more than likely would have betrayed him again and kept feeding information to Dino, which would have not only endangered Ash, but the rest of his gang. His suspicions are of course proven when, after kicking them out, they do exactly that, running to Dino and ratting Ash out to him, for which trouble they end up dead in a ditch. Ash could have killed them. His own gang expected him to kill them, and thought he was going soft when he didn’t. He probably SHOULD have killed them, because if he had, Dino never would have found out what Ash knew. Ash showed mercy to them instead. He basically told them to leave town, because he knew Dino would be after them. That isn’t a good example of Ash acting cold. It’s the exact opposite. Ash never wanted to kill if he didn’t absolutely have to. Just like he showed mercy to that hitman who tried to take him out after he and Eiji meet up with Shorter after ditching Charlie and the lawyer, letting him go when Shorter was ready to kill him. Again, I think you’re projecting an impression you want to see onto a narrative framing which doesn’t support it. Ash’s actions are very deliberately portrayed as heroic, and entirely selfless. Narrative framing matters. It’s everything, really. He protects Eiji when he doesn’t have to, when he doesn’t even know him. He goes into what he knows is a trap to save Skip, and gives himself up willingly to torture in order to protect him and Eiji both, even when Shorter himself tries to discourage him from going. Ash would have been forgiven for not throwing himself into a winless situation, even at the expense of one of his crew in Skip, and certainly at the expense of a total stranger in Eiji that walked into the situation himself. His gang isn’t going to care at that point if the cops entrusted Eiji to Ash, because Eiji, at that point, isn’t one of them, and there’s no reason to be loyal, either to the cops or Eiji. Heck, Ash could have simply pretended to not even notice Skip escaping outside the bar, which would have freed him from any sense of obligation at all in the eyes of his gang. But he does notice, and he immediately goes after Skip, even as he figures out immediately that it’s a trap. He doesn’t hesitate for a moment.
This idea that Ash only cares because he’s trying to maintain power, or because he wants to gain power, again, contradicts everything we know about Ash and how he even came into power in the first place. He didn’t seek it out, he was chosen by the other street kids and gangs because of his natural abilities and superior fighting skills. They just started regarding him as their leader, and following him around while he was in reform school. This is important. THEY chose him, not the other way around. They started following him because he was stronger, more capable, and they knew, because he had those qualities, that he could protect them. Their own motives for choosing Ash were rooted in self-preservation. Ash never wanted to be a boss, but once these kids started looking to him as their leader and protector, he couldn’t abandon them or tell them to screw off, because in their eyes, he was their best shot at survival themselves. The fact he doesn’t abandon them, despite obviously not wanting to be a boss, shows in itself that he cares enough to look out for people who look to him as someone who can keep them safe. Ash could have just as easily said screw you and kept on on his own, since he’d more than proven he was capable of taking care of himself.
And we see things from Ash’s view point several times throughout the story. Moments when he’s alone and clearly tortured by the things he’s having to do, expressions on his face when he’s turned away from any other characters, private moments. Remember, this is a visual medium, and what we’re seeing matters just as much as the words on the page. Character expressions tell us just as much about what a character is thinking and feeling as their dialog, either external or internal. Even then, we see several internal monologues and dreams where Ash’s self-loathing and fear of himself is on full display. When he looks at his own hands in horror, because he can only see the hands of a monster that can’t stop killing. Where he’s clearly, deeply conflicted and suffering over his actions, because deep down, he has a good heart.
Ash is clearly meant to be seen as a hero, supported by the narrative framing of all of his actions, and supported by Ash’s actions themselves. If he could be seen as a villain, than that would be a particularly ugly, not to mention reckless handling of a victim of child abuse in a work of fiction, essentially portraying someone who had been repeatedly raped as a child as the evil one, conveying a twisted message that victims of child abuse will themselves become bad people, instead of the actual message the story conveys, which is compassion for victims of child abuse. Even Yut-Lung, who’s actions are clearly meant to be seen as selfish and petty in nature, is portrayed at points in a sympathetic light, because he too was subjected to an awful childhood. But he’s directly set up as a photo negative of Ash, his actions very plainly in contrast to Ash’s own, and again, the narrative framing makes clear who’s good and who’s bad in this scenario. Ash is so clearly meant to be sympathetic, I really don’t understand how anyone could ever see him as anything but. The intent of the portrayal is clear, which is why everyone I’ve ever met or talked to that has read the manga, or watched the anime, comes away with the distinct impression that Ash is the tragic hero, and they all feel for him and care about him deeply. And it’s why everyone is so upset at the ending, because the narrative very actively encourages us, the audience, to care about Ash and his struggles, and to see his actions as tragically self-sacrificing and heroic. That’s just bizarre to me that anyone could see it otherwise. But, if you really want to see Ash that way, then that’s your choice, and that’s fine, and I know I won’t change your mind on it.
@sayaka19fan Like I said, if you can’t be bothered to read what I wrote, I’m not going to try and squeeze it into a shorter argument just for your convenience. You either read it or you don’t.
Ash’s conversation with Shorter and his confusion over Shorter’s words about Arthur being clever tell you that Ash wasn’t a boss, and that he had no designs on becoming one. Ash stood out among the street kids because he’s beautiful and because he’s smarter than everyone.
Charlie was a cop, that’s all you need to know to understand why Ash wouldn’t entirely trust him, again for all the reasons I laid out in my previous post. And it wasn’t just Charlie that Ash would be dealing with if he’d gone along with his parole. Again, I laid all this out already.
If you think all of Ash’s actions are suspicious, then I don’t know what to tell you. He’s framed in a heroic light throughout the series, and engages in several heroic acts. If you can’t see that, then it’s because you’re being deliberately cynical and uncharitable towards Ash’s character, because you want to be. Not because there’s anything within the actual narrative to support your suspicions. There’s a reason Ash is such a beloved character, and it’s because the narrative structure purposefully frames him in a positive light.
And what do you mean the only thought we ever get from Ash is that he wants revenge? What about the scene when he’s in the hospital after his fight with Arthur, and we see his dream sequence? What about when he’s going after Arthur’s gang, and we see his internal monologue questioning his actions, and being horrified over what he thinks he’s becoming? What about all the moments he’s alone, and we see him break down over his past actions, like in the bathroom after he wakes up from a nightmare, or after Eiji is shot and he’s begging God to not take him? What about all the private looks and expressions we see from him, when no one but the reader is looking at him, which show a clear and obvious pain and regret? You can’t just ignore all of that because he doesn’t state in clear, concise terms what it is he “wants” in an internal monologue. Again, it’s a visual medium, and what we see in a character’s expression means just as much as the actual text. It’s called body language. Actions speak louder than words anyway, and Ash’s actions support his inherent goodness.
@sayaka19fan I’m not trying to be unkind, I just can’t boil all of my points into a shorter post. Shorter’s words were said out loud. Ash responds by saying “Huh?”. He doesn’t know what Shorter’s talking about. Ash discarded Charlie’s alliance because Charlie couldn’t help him get revenge for Griff’s death. He only would have hindered him in that goal, and Ash, like I said, would have just been put on trial and likely convicted for a crime he didn’t commit, and gone to prison for life. Meanwhile, Dino would have gotten away with everything.
Ash and Shorter were having a conversation, they were asking questions of each other and responding to each other. We come upon the scene in what is clearly the middle of this conversation, and Ash is explaining to Shorter how Arthur got him sent up. We have to assume that Ash is listening to Shorter’s responses within this context. Again, framing MATTERS. The impression a scene leaves you with, based on how it’s framed, is intentional. It’s how an author tells the reader what they should be thinking. Ash’s response to Shorter, and Shorter’s words, within the context of what we just learned about Ash’s discomfort at the other inmates treating him like a boss, denotes confusion. This, coupled with the fact that Ash didn’t make any attempts to form a gang for the first several weeks he was in Juvie, instead wanting to be left alone and content to fend for himself, tells us Ash had no designs on forming a gang. If he had, he would have immediately set about establishing himself as someone to be followed. He would have been aware of those types of dynamics within gang culture, and worked to set himself up in that regard. But he didn’t. Why not, if he was a boss on the outside? He would have known it would afford him protection too, and power within the system. But he doesn’t get a crew until everyone just starts inadvertently attaching themselves to him. The fact too that Arthur tries to take Ash out after getting him sent up, because he could see that Ash’s natural abilities and charisma would eventually lead to the street kids following him, which in turn would lead to a direct confrontation between them, is more proof that Ash wasn’t yet a boss. It’s why Shorter says Arthur was trying to “nip Ash in the bud”. He was trying to get rid of Ash before that could happen. All of this information taken together lets us know that Ash hadn’t yet become a boss, and that he never even planned on it, .
And Ash’s expressions from beginning to end reveal to us a range of emotions, many of which are plainly meant to be seen as pain, guilt, regret, sadness, etc… We see this both early on and later on. Once more, in a medium as visual as this, what we see matters just as much as what we read. Just because we don’t see him think directly of what his intentions are in an inner monologue doesn’t mean you can just assume Ash has bad intentions, when his actions, and the framing of those actions, conveys entirely otherwise. Once again, framing matters. Once again, this is the nature of this particular medium, where you’re meant to infer just as much from the visual aspect as the text. Again, I reiterate, there’s a reason the vast majority of Banana Fish fans like Ash as much as they do. That isn’t an accident. The impression people are left with when they read this story is that Ash is a good person, and they want him to overcome his struggle and be happy. If people were meant to be left questioning Ash’s intentions and his goodness, there wouldn’t be such a widely shared impression of him as the hero.
