Banana Fish- 23

What the actual heck just happened?
Did, did we get a major villain shift in the second to last episode? Did Golzine just DIE to this colonel guy that I don’t even remember the name of that this point? Did the major victory against the man who tortured and abused Ash almost his entire life just get taken away from him? I, feel oddly cheated. We spent a majority of this series building up Yut-Lung and Golzine as the major bad guys. Alright, once again I feel like i’m getting ahead of myself but it’s always the end of these episodes that manage to throw me for a loop.

What I really did enjoy in this episode was the focus we got on Blanca and Yut-Lung.
Getting a proper introduction to their backstories and at long last, I have come to truly understand Yut-Lung’s character. I may not respect him, I may still very much view him as a child pitching a temper tantrum. Though hearing him properly articulate his backstory, about what his brothers did to his mother and how it filled him with a desire for revenge and hate. Does he have a right to hate them? Absolutely. His revenge on his brothers is absolutely justified.
What’s not justified is his desire to make Ash into the same kind of Monster that he is. He doesn’t think Ash should get the chance to save himself, since he doesn’t see himself as someone who can be saved. Someone who is unloved and can never be loved. That’s the kind of person he is drawn too, it’s what drew him to Blanca as well.

Though Blanca did know love. He knew love for only a short time, before it was taken away from him. Either by the government, which he worked for or really by terrorist. It doesn’t matter, the only person to love him and show him what it was like to feel love was gone.
That’s why Blanca can stand by Ash. Why he doesn’t seek to see Ash turn into the same kind of Monster that they are. Thus, Eiji should not be killed.

Speaking of Eiji. Of course he was alive, I am still of the opinion that if they wanted us to believe for even a second that he was actually dead. They should of had him shot by a main character. Though it does open up for a super cute scene of Ash and Eiji in the hospital. I just, really want these boys to be happy alright? I don’t want Ash to have to say ‘goodbye’ to Eiji ever again. I want them to go to Japan, I want Ash to never have to hold a gun again.
Still doubting that’s the ending we’re going to get but we’ll see. Things with Ash and the Chinese gang are tense and in the end, Sing offers to make amends for what happened with a one on one fight against Ash after they rescue everyone and get to the good end.

Speaking of endings! Ash and Blanca and the rest of the group that can goes to save the people who were captured and brought to the national health institute. Everything seems to be going really well, they manage to corner Golzine and get him as a hostage. At the same time, the news of Banana Fish is going to be published. As Ash brings Golzine inside to make his demands for the release of the hostages, the colonel meets with them and gives his answer.
In the form if two gunshot wounds to Golzine’s chest.

This is what makes me SO angry. I feel like we’ve spent this entire series building up Golzine as the ‘final boss’, bringing him down would be the perfect and ultimate victory for Ash. Even if Ash went down in the process, he could go down knowing that he took out the man who tortured him. The colonel only came in on episode 21, I am referring to him by his rank because I don’t even remember his name! I have no connection to him. In the grand scheme of the story, he means nothing to me or to Ash.
Yes, he raped Ash last episode. Yes, he’s a awful person. Yes it will be immensely satisfying to see him get taken down. No, he should not of gotten to shoot Golzine. That right is Ash’s and Ash’s ALONE.

The best thing I can say about this and it keeps nagging at me is that in some strange way, it’s oddly realistic. Life has a way doing things like this, the people we think are the ‘final boss’ aren’t always the true final boss and betrayal happens all the time in the case of the mafia and the underworld.
From a storytelling standpoint though. It just feels cheap and like we’re getting jipped of the ending that we’ve been building towards for such a long time.