You ever had a manga you knew was good…but the main character was such a <bleep> that you couldn’t enjoy it? I like a good conspiracy theory/ragtag gang-on-the-run manga as much as anyone else, but when the protagonist is about as sympathetic as Jack the Ripper, it just ruins everything.
So this <rather unpleasant guy> named Ash had an older brother who took some bad drugs in ‘Nam and ended up shooting his whole unit. Older bro ends up as a vegetable who can only say “Banana Fish” and Ash winds up as a minor gang boss in New York. Eventually he finds a clue to the whole Banana Fish deal, but there are plenty of people – namely mafia boss Papa Dino, who will do anything to keep him from finding the truth. Etc, etc.
Banana Fish
…And that’s how far I think I’m ever going to get because I can’t STAND Ash. He’s the most incredibly stuck-up prat, ever! He’s supposed to be so smart, but most of the trouble he gets into is because he just won’t listen when people tell him not to do something. “No, Ash! It’s a trap!” means “It’s a trap!” you numbskull, don’t go dashing out there all half-cocked and act surprised when you get arrested and sent to jail. And then yeah, he shows flashes of brilliance in jail, but he wouldn’t even have BEEN in jail if he wasn’t such a nitwit in the first place. What a moron! “Oh, but he was raped as a kid, you’re supposed to feel sorry for him!” Yeah…NO. In fact the mangaka, Akimi Yoshida, clearly realizes that Ash’s level of —holery exceeds the pity point, so she keeps revising the age of his first rape earlier and earlier, wait he was 10, no wait he was 7, no wait… Give it a rest lady, your main character is a twit.
Thank goodness for Google and Wikipedia where I can read up on everything that happened without raising my blood pressure. Adios, Banana Fish!
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