Eiji, Eiji, Eiji. I am going to be honest with you, I sort of shut down at the end of this episode.
I am of two entirely different minds, one part of me knows this is based off a shoujo manga and it’s immensely unlikely that one of the main characters is going to be gunned down by some no name character and stay dead. At the same time, I’ve believed from the start that a story like this can’t have a truly happy ending. If Eiji had been shot by Golzine or Yut-Lung, I would have zero doubt that he was truly and honestly dead. It is the mere fact that he was shot by a no name character from Sing’s gang that throws a shadow of doubt on the very emotional ending to this episode.
I’m getting ahead of myself though, but I am going to level with you. I am so caught up on this ending that it’s hard to focus on the rest of the episode. Only a few moments and facts really stick out to me not including the dramatic build up to the part where Eiji is shot and Ash turns into the Monster that Yut-Lung wants to see him become.
-Max is still alive. He’s being tortured but he’s still alive. He will be kept alive until the information stolen by Ash and Jessica is retrieved and Ash is captured once more.
-Blanca standing up to Yut-Lung and telling him point blank that he can’t have Eiji killed, taking a gun and going to try to stop the hit on Eiji.
-The talk that Ash and Jessica have about what happened, though short. Was immensely impactful to me, the fact that he’s able to stand up and move again so quickly after being raped. When it took her six months, and the way he just says he would of died a long time ago if it took him that long. It really reflects the awful kind of life he’s led to this point.
The real heart pounder though was the entire scene playing out as the credits rolled. The soft talk between Ash and Eiji, once again breaching the topic of Ash getting away from this kind of life. Never having to hold a gun or being the boss of a gang again. It played out in a very cliche way, you knew it was coming and it filled you with an absolute sense of dread. As Ash asked Eiji to teach him Japanese, they sat going over the basics and the minute you heard them going over the word ‘goodbye’.
You knew.
The door was burst open and Eiji threw himself in the way to keep Ash safe. As the bullet ripped through Eiji, all of the humanity vanished from Ash and he gunned down these two no names with no remorse. Shooting their corpses long after they were dead. He almost shot Sing and did shoot Sing’s second in command in the hand for pulling a gun on him.
Despite how cliche and predictable it was, it made my skin go cold and made tears sting my eyes. I can only hope that things work out, we still have a few bad guys to knock down before we know if this story has a happy ending or not. Two episodes, is that really enough time to wrap up all the plot threads that we have hanging at this point? We still need to defeat the Russian guy, Yut-Lung is a problem, save Max, defeat Golzine and hopefully find out that Eiji survived this gun shot wound.
That’s a lot for two more episodes, not to mention revealing the truth of Banana Fish to the world and throwing the US government into a complete upset. I’m not doubting it’s ability to do it, i’m just wondering how.
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