Major misconceptions about Banana Fish debunked by Yoshida Akimi, the writer
“Ash dying in the end was editorial meddling because Yoshida wasn’t allowed to write a story where gay people survive and become happy, so actually Ash should survive and move to Japan and live happy ever after with Eiji.”
Sato (Yoshida’s editor): “If I wasn’t your editor, I’d probably have thought a female Blanca [who hooks up with Ash] would have been fun to read too. I don’t remember what I said at our meeting [to change Yoshida’s mind], but I probably looked like I wasn’t pleased with it.”
Yoshida: “Did you think that Ash having sex with a woman wouldn’t fit?”
Sato: “Not really… I wonder what I was feeling?”
Yoshida: “For me, you know, there’s no sex scenes with women [in BF]. So I felt like I’d like to show that hey, Ash is a guy! Since Ash isn’t actually gay.”
Yoshida: “I had Ashita no Joe in mind [when I wrote the ending].”
Sato: “Yeah, you talked about that back then.”
Host: “In HIkari no niwa, it says directly that Ash died.”
Yoshida: “I said he died! (laughs) There were people who kept writing to me saying Ash has to be alive and that he has to come to Japan, kept saying ‘He’s actually alive, right?’“
Host: “They insisted he’d use the ticket he got from Eiji and come to Japan?”
Yoshida: “Nothing that specific, but I wonder why some girls think of happiness in that sort of context. They kept saying, ‘He’ll come to Japan and the two of them will be happy, right?’ and I always wondered, why would you insist that coming to Japan will make him happy? What is happiness?”
Host: “Do you think fans will get mad when you say that?”
Yoshida: “I do wonder. I always worry about how to deal with my protagonists who are criminals. Obviously they’re hurt by killing people, but still. […] They kill because otherwise they’d be killed, but they’re still murderers. I feel giving a proper ending to people like that is very difficult, and in the end in Banana Fish I decided that he shouldn’t survive.”
Fujimoto: “Why did Ash die?”
Yoshida: “I was conflicted about that. I had two endings in mind, one where he dies and another where he doesn’t, but I’d decided a long time ago that he would die, so I felt I couldn’t change that.”
Fujimoto: “What was the ending like where he didn’t die?”
Yoshida: “Nothing special, he just doesn’t die (laughs).”
Fujimoto: “Nothing happens between him and Eiji, they just part ways and…”
Yoshida: “Yes, like that. But I felt that the ending I’d thought of first was the most fitting.”
Fujimoto: “So when you started this series, your plan was that Ash would die.”
Yoshida: “Exactly. To say the truth, I only became conflicted about whether he would die or not quite late on in the serialization.“
Fujimoto: “When was it exactly?”
Yoshida: “When River Phoenix died (laughs). I began thinking this wasn’t a joke. But my original theme for this story was that there’s something fascinating about people who die young, like how this person lived his full life in 17 years rather than the 70 years it takes for normal people. But in reality, people dying young is a terrible tragedy. So I thought maybe I shouldn’t go there. But when it comes down to it, Ash is a killer. I feel that regardless of what might have been behind the killings, people who take another person’s life need to make up for it with their own life. So that’s why I wrote that ending. Also, I didn’t think Ash would get to live long anyway (laughs).”
Fujimoto: “Some writers say it takes a lot of energy to kill off their characters. How do you feel about killing off your characters?”
Yoshida: “Me? That’s not really an issue for me. I’d killed off a lot of characters before, and it wasn’t a big deal. The only thing was that River Phoenix died young in real life, so I thought ‘This is bad.’ If that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have felt anything about it. I don’t think dying young is an unhappy thing. Whether people were happy or not doesn’t depend on how long they lived. I always wonder if people were happy just because they had a long life.”
“Banana Fish is actually shonen manga, and if Yoshida had her way or if it had been written today, it would have been shonen or seinen (or BL).”
Headline: “I like shojo manga because anything goes”
Fujimoto: “Don’t you get a lot of offers from magazines aimed at men?”
Yoshida: “I do, but I think writing for boys is boring. Their wants and desires are too obvious (laughs). And I feel they’re conservative… or how should I say it, they refuse to believe in magic? They don’t believe in magic and instead believe in their own sexual desires (laughs). I’m envious of how simple they are (laughs). But girls aren’t like that. They’re confusing and complicated and I don’t know what they’ll react to and how, and on the flip side that means anything goes.”
Sources: Shojo manga-damashii, Banana Fish official guidebook
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