![]() If you get, you get and if you don’t, you still have a great story. I was already a part of the queer community when I read Banana Fish so it’s entirely possible that I picked up on context clues that would not have been obvious to the general public. It could still be worth it for those that do see the details. ![]() I guess we can argue that there is enough overt representation in media nowadays that it doesn’t matter if it goes over the heads of some fans. Psycho-Pass has an explicit lesbian relationship but it’s never considered Yuri after all. If a tree falls in the forest sort of thing. ![]() At that point, it’s sort of the same as it not being there at all. After all, is its representation if it’s so subtle or too small a part in the story, that people don’t pick up on it? A chat full of anime bloggers, people who love the medium and dissect it for fun, didn’t notice or see it as such. Personally, I think that’s a shame.īut then I started thinking, maybe I’m wrong. Since the explosion in popularity of queer romances in anime, I find that we don’t get as many of those elusive storylines. And the potential it had remained limitless. The fact that the core of the relationship was something a bit more private to Ash and Eiji and even the audience(readers) weren’t in on all the details, made it special. Making it all subtle and tongue in cheek would have been annoying and potentially ruined the series.īut in Banana Fish, I thought it added a lot. Given absolutely needed to be about Mafuyu and Ritsuka falling in love. I more or less fell in love with the first season of Given. And don’t get me wrong, a lot of great stories simply work best that way. It seems like the main point of the characters involved is to fall in love. That is how Ash would act in a romantic context and the relationship sort of feels like it developed naturally and not like it was the point of the story.Ī lot of BL and Yuri stories have romance in the forefront, even when the series isn’t necessarily a romance. It’s written in a way where the actions and clues scattered around make perfect sense for these particular characters. And to be clear, I still think the relationship is clear in the manga, just not quite as front and center maybe. The fact is that it creates layered and nuanced representation. I’m not sure if Akimi Yoshida was trying to get around censorship laws or age restriction regulation, or whether she simply wanted to portray the relationship in this casual and subtle way. However, I also really liked the representation in the manga. And I particularly like when it’s part of a complex and rounded-out story, rather than the entire point. ![]() I am all for BL and queer representation in media. I never followed up on that original conversation but I did reread the manga and there are a few things I personally took away from the experience.įirst of all, I like the fact that the adaptation made the relationship between Ash and Eiji completely clear. Then the anime came out and made all the implicit connections, explicit. That’s not usually my style, if anything I’m too dense for subtext but if no one else at all had noticed, I could be off on this one. After all, maybe I had read too much into it. I was told politely that I must be thinking about something else and Banana Fish was not a BL story in any way.Īt the time, I didn’t insist. Neither this megafan, nor anyone in the chat had any idea what I was talking about. We were chatting about it and I offhand mentioned that Banana Fish was a BL classic and in my opinion did a lot to bring representation in a mature context. They had also been a huge fan of the manga, and it was actually their favourite. At the time, I was also part of a few anime blogger chat rooms and I remember one of our members being absolutely thrilled about it all. ![]()
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