Banana Fish

## Banana Fish *Banana Fish* is a landmark shoujo manga from the 1980s — a gritty, tragic crime epic set in the New York underworld that broke genre conventions and remains one of the most powerful manga ever published. Ash Lynx is a seventeen-year-old gang leader in New York City — beautiful, lethal, and cursed by a dark past that begins with a strange phrase his dying brother muttered in Vietnam: "Banana Fish." When photojournalist's assistant Eiji Okumura arrives from Japan, an unlikely bond forms between the street-hardened Ash and the gentle, sheltered Eiji as they are drawn together into a conspiracy involving a mysterious drug, powerful criminal organizations, and government cover-ups. Akimi Yoshida's masterwork is a stunning genre hybrid: part crime thriller, part tragic romance, part political drama — unflinching in its portrayal of violence, exploitation, and the corruption of innocence. Serialized in Bessatsu Shoujo Comic from 1985 to 1994, *Banana Fish* was radically ahead of its time. The 2018 anime adaptation by MAPPA brought the series to a new generation; the manga remains the definitive experience.