Banana Fish · Season 1 · Prime Video
Banana Fish Season 1
Banana Fish Season 1 is a MUST-WATCH, BollyMeter 8.3/10. 24 episodes on Prime Video from 5 July 2018.
Updated
What BollyAI Thinks
Banana Fish aired on Fuji TV's Noitamina block from July to December 2018, with global simultaneous streaming via Amazon Prime Video. MAPPA's adaptation of Akimi Yoshida's landmark 1985 manga translated the story into contemporary New York without losing the original's core: a criminal conspiracy spanning from Vietnam-era atrocities to present-day organised crime, anchored by the relationship between Ash Lynx - a gang leader with extraordinary tactical intelligence - and Eiji Okumura, a Japanese photographer's assistant whose gentleness Ash cannot account for in his worldview. Anime News Network's Rose Bridges awarded the premiere episodes an A- and the series sustained that critical warmth through its run: an 8.1 IMDb audience score and ANN user aggregate of 7.655 placed it firmly in the upper tier of 2018 anime. The LGBTQ dimension of the Ash/Eiji bond - implicit in the original manga, more legible in the adaptation - made it a landmark title for that audience in anime specifically.
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The Room
“All I feel when I finish an episode of Banana Fish is how much I want more.”
Anime News Network
Standout Episodes
The hours worth arguing about — premieres, finales, and the turning points. BollyAI reads the room episode by episode.
- E1A Perfect Day for Bananafish8.0
The premiere drops into New York street crime with the efficiency of a crime novel: Ash Lynx's world is established through action rather than exposition, the Banana Fish drug appears as the central mystery, and Eiji arrives as the scene-disrupting outside element that changes the show's chemical equation. MAPPA's production quality is immediately apparent in the action choreography.
The moment: Ash and Eiji's first extended interaction - two people from entirely different worlds, one of them about to be changed by the other.
- E24The Old Man and the Sea9.0
The finale is one of the most discussed anime endings of 2018, particularly for how it handles the central relationship's resolution. The episode is calibrated for emotional devastation and delivers on its setup without evasion. Viewers who had invested in Ash and Eiji for 24 episodes reported reactions proportional to that investment.
The moment: The final letter - the scene that defined Banana Fish's emotional legacy for its audience.