At the reported deathof Ash Lynx, Eiji grows some major balls and I couldn’t be more proud of him. As he shatters the glass of his room to make it appear as he jumped and then takes Yut hostage. He certainly isn’t the innocent baby boy we met at the beginning of the series anymore. I should probably be worried about this, but i’m more proud to see him grow into his own character past being the ‘soft boi’ that helps Ash deal with the harshness of the world.
Yet still, he has his reservations. He won’t shoot someone who isn’t resisting, despite the fact that Yut is absolutely right in pointing out that he is dangerous to keep around. Dangerous for Eiji, dangerous for Ash. He’s right when he says that Ash wouldn’t hesitate at all to pull the trigger and dirty his hands for Eiji.
Eiji is absolutely right in saying that Yut won’t ever truly understand either.
First off, the comment on last episode was absolutely right. No matter how much I hate Yut, I will never hate him as much as he hates himself. I’m not even entirely sure I hate him, I think I just dislike him because the minute Sing points out that Lut was serious when he asked Eiji to shoot him. I felt even the

tiniest ping of sympathy.

God, even knowing that it’s a trick and that it was just a corpse that looked like Ash’s. It was massively discomforting to see them seemingly cutting open his body, the scene wasn’t even that graphic and didn’t contain as much blood as most other scenes in this show or in most animes I watch. I think it was because even for a split second, it fools your senses into believing that Ash is really dead. Max though, Max is perfect and not only could tell the trick despite being kept at a distance, his reason for being able to spot it is “Because he’s like a son to me.”
I have long adored the relationship Ash has with Max, they had a rough beginning in the jail at the beginning of the series but there has been a lot of trust built up between the two of them since then.

Meanwhile, while they put on that show of him being dead upstairs. Downstairs they are running tests on him to get his true IQ, which is over 200. They want to use him for something before truly killing him. At this facility, they are using criminals to test Banana Fish or as they call it there, B-1.
Oh hey, it’s Abraham’s brother. I remember questioning what happened to him back in a previous review, now I see. He was bitten by the snake that he raised, his own drug used on him. His intelligence compromised by the drug. Something they want to get rid off, because they desire to control the minds of scientist without dulling their intelligence. What the hell? This is disgusting, we bulk at the idea of human experimentation? Of course we do! Because it’s wrong! It’s awful! I don’t care if that guy Adam killed 3 nuns, give him the death penalty rather than this.
Dr. Dawson, while I can’t say he was in the right for not destroying all of Banana Fish when he had the chance, he doesn’t deserve this!

Speaking of people being bitten by the hand that feeds, Golzine is pulled from his own project. He has fallen from grace and been replaced, which I think is what stops him from straight up taking Ash and torturing him. He still intends to take Ash down, but not now and not while he is weakened. He intends to make a hunt of it, interesting, very interesting.

 

You know what else is interesting? Ash’s escape plan, which was seduce and kill a security guard. My god, this boy, I shouldn’t be laughing this hard but he’s just…I can’t believe it works. Also, what is it with rescue plans and escape plans running side by side in this show? Max and Ibe are there to work out a rescue plan for Ash and Ash is killing a guy, stealing his gun and his security clearance card.
Meanwhile, Sing is finally learning the truth about Shorter from Eiji. So I am interested to know where his character is going to move from here.