Something Fishy

So I'm here to talk about the anime Banana Fish. I had long heard of this story as one of the ones that got it right with LGBT representation, so I was very eager to see how they handled it. On the outset it looks like it's setting up for an intimate relationship between the two male leads who are drawn to each other despite coming from completely different worlds. It never actually confirms anything, however. There is no love confession. There is only a declaration of friendship. There is no doubt that the two had chemistry or that they cared deeply for one another, but nothing more. Not only was the relationship between the two who would have been the wholesome couple never confirmed as more than close friendship, the only other gay representation is extremely negative. Papa Dino uses Ash and other young men as prostitutes, even threatening to rape Eiji at one point. Dino is a mafia don who, among other things, runs a child sex trafficking scheme through one of his restaurants. One of the first people to get killed, Marvin, is shown as being openly gay and he turns out to be a pedophile who has tapes of himself raping Ash as a young boy in his apartment. 

Not every bad guy in Banana Fish is gay, but it would seem every gay man in Banana Fish is a bad guy. And before you say "but what about Ash and Eiji?" they aren't gay, at least not entirely. There is a scene where Ash and Eiji talk about girls they've liked. At most they are bi-sexual or bi-romantic. The story, if you ignore what seems to me to be blatant homophobia, is good. It is a story about a man's journey towards redemption and love despite coming from horrific abuse and violence and being constantly drawn back into that world (it just doesn't seem that the love is more than platonic in nature). If the show had ended with any sort of romantic declaration of love, even if the love is asexual because of Ash's past, it could be called good representation. Yes, it is a story of abuse. I agree that showing how Ash is vulnerable and has been used by men brings to light the very real abuse that many women face in their daily lives just because they're women and reasonably good looking. However, it was not necessary to exclude any positive gay relationships. There are at least two positive heterosexual ones. And the best argument I've heard for this is that the original Manga was written in the 80's which was a time when you couldn't be explicit about that kind of thing (unless you are pushing the message that gay = bad, I suppose, because there are plenty of explicit depictions of gay men, they're just all being portrayed as bad people).

So I guess I'll watch the other shows that have been recommended as good representation and find out if they are similarly disappointing. Other than the poor LGBT representation, Banana Fish was a pretty good show. The intrigue was good. I wasn't too crazy about the portrayal of America, but that is more amusing than upsetting. Some parts of it seemed a little bit reminiscent of actions movies, which aren't really my scene (lots of gratuitous violence that doesn't move the plot along), some of it did help show the contrast between the worlds Ash and Eiji live in, though. I really loved the relationship between the two, even as a platonic bond, but would have loved it more if the writer had had the balls to make it undeniably romantic love. I have heard that there is an epilogue that shows one of their friends talking about their relationship and classifying them as soulmates, but I feel like this is enough of a cop out that it doesn't count. It's like JK Rowling saying Dumbledore is gay but never actually showing it (until recently, in an apparent attempt to revive her standing in the LGBT community after all her anti-trans rhetoric).