![]() ![]() It still tortures him, to know that he’s taken a life. He doesn’t care what the reasons for it are, or that he’s justified in it. He was never a sociopath, or a psychopath. He’s never had a lack of empathy or sympathy. He’s never had difficulty understanding what it is, or what it means to to kill. He’s never had a problem understanding the nature of killing. He hates himself for killing because it’s always been something he understood to be bad, to be wrong. The tragic irony, of course, is that Ash’s own self-hatred is proof in itself of his good heart. His deep self-loathing and disgust at himself. 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. Ash cried about it then because he hadn’t yet learned to detach himself from the act for his own sanity. One can easily infer from this that he’s talking about forcing Ash to take out hits on people, to kill people. 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. 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. 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. To keep others away from him because he’s been repeatedly hurt and betrayed by everyone in his life, especially adults. 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. 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. ![]() 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. He never had the desire or wish to dominate people, the way all of his abusers wanted to dominate him, and control him. Ash never cared about money, or power, or control. Because, deep down, that isn’t who Ash is. That without Eiji and his influence, Ash would eventually succumb to the dark side, as it were.īut I think it’s something a little different than that. There’s even a notion among readers/viewers of Banana Fish that seems to buy into this notion. 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. Even Ash’s friends, like Shorter, Sing, Cain, and his gang, talk about him like he’s almost inhuman. This occurs with Dino, Yut-Lung, Blanca, Foxx, and any number of other characters. They often use terms such as “devil” or “Satan”, or “demon”, or “angel” when talking about him. All, of course, with the very notable exception of Eiji.Īlmost everyone speaks about Ash as if he’s some sort of otherworldly being. 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. It’s difficult for me to work out what I’m trying to say, but here it goes. This is gonna get long, and I keep amending it, sorry.
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