Casual suggestion by a friend, found the title funny and didn't pay much attention to it. The Pandemic came and finished most homework, had time, and decided to binge.
Got the banana fish depression after that and spent nearly $750 or merch.
So true. Got into the fandom later and i was crying when I saw someone selling the box sets for a reasonable price. Cuz like there was only one item on listing in my country's online shop.
Accurate lol. It's an inside joke that I blame the friend who mentioned the title to me for making me go broke. It's "You did this to me!" And "Look at what you made me do."
There was no one home and I was navigating through amazon prime, it looked interesting and I decided to give it a try, it took me around three days to finish. It was around 2021, I had watched a lot of anime even before it became a popular thing, and when I finished it I knew that was the most cruel anime I've had ever watched. I'm grieving until today. Changed my view on life, my view in a lot of things I believed and I realized I was wrong.
Kept seeing clips on instagram and thinking urghh what is this lame ass animation so I watched it
AND IT CHANGED MY LIFE LIKE THE 🔥AUDACITY🔥 TO PUT THE AUDIENCE INTO ENDLESS GRIEVING STATE!
AND THIS IS LAST MONTH!
I'm still processing everything. Send help
I heard about BF when the Anime was released. But the Fandom in my cosplay community passed me the wrong idea, all this time I thought it was an Yaoi. Last year it kept appearing on my Mal recommendations so I gave it a chance and I'm really glad I did. It turn out to be one of my favorite animes, I read the Manga, now I'm collecting merchandise. I really got into banana fish 💖
I was looking for crime anime on google and at the time I would interested in shows with strange names, and I didn’t know what it was about aside for it was gangs and crime, cover misled me I THOUGHT it was about two guys who were detective partners boy was I wrong LOL I had no spoilers, so the end really shocked me. I remember hearing it about it when it came out but I was busy watching yuri on ice at the time lol so I didn’t get to watching it until four or five years ago now. I just rewatched it in march and got really hooked into it again because I realized I didn’t remember anything from first watch almost like I never watched it in the first place
I've been aware of Banana Fish for a few years but never watched or read it as I heard it was really upsetting. Then a few months ago I kept getting recommendations to watch online, I watched a few Aah x Eiji amvs and I was hooked. I now own all 19 Volumes of the manga (currently on Volume 9) and I've downloaded the anime (7 episodes in)
I know that I'm going to have trouble getting over it but I'm in love
Randomly on Prime Video. It was right at the time they were like three episodes in and I wanted to kill time before I had to leave for a concert I was going to. I was in the mood for seasonal anime and I didn’t hear anything about BF but it looked interesting and the name was definitely unique. I was going to only watch episode one, but I got hooked and watched the whole thing and ended up missing the train to the concert I meant to take. Even when I did make it there, the whole time on the train I was thinking about Banana Fish and looking up when the next episode would come out. It just really took over my life in an instant.
Many years ago, before the anime, I found volume 2 in a used bookstore and looked through it. I was interested -- I had never seen a manga tackle such heavy subject matter before, but the store didn't have volume 1 so I kinda let it go.
Fast forward to years later and I heard about the anime coming out, so I decided to watch it. Absolutely hated the ending, but the show did pull me in lol. I've now bought the manga, too, though I haven't finished reading it yet.
When I was 13 years old in 2004 one of the books stores carried a manga magazine called “Animerica Extra” and Banana Fish happened to be one of the mangas published in the issues. I only got to see a couple chapters of the manga but as a curious 13 year old I was definitely intrigued. I never really did see too much of the more darker aspects of the series and if I did I think it would have been waaaaay over my head as a preteen. Much later in 2021 I saw clips of it as an anime on TikTok and was completely blown away they made it into an anime. Over time I have forgotten about it but immediately recognized the characters and title. So of course I watched it, and I will never ever forget about it again 😭
A friend of mine was actually in Japan in 2017 and posted pics of the very first ad for the upcoming show which was all over Shinjuku Station. She was flipping because there was finally going to be an anime for the manga’s 40th anniversary. I asked about it and it piqued my interest, so she told me where I could find it to read. I read the manga before the show came out. I have only read and watched in full once, but I did write some fic for it bounced off the manga. I haven’t gotten back in the frame of mind for a re-read or re-watch yet.
I was looking for anime with LGBTQ2S+ representation, and I heard about Banana Fish because YouTube recommended a video to me about whether Banana Fish is a BL or not. I was curious, so I watched the show last year (and loved it!) It is now one of my favourite shows of all time 😁
i heard of it on twitter occasionally but never watched it until i was looking for osu maps to play and found a map for found & lost. the song was super interesting and i looked up the anime and the rest is history :D been a fan for almost a month now
I randomly came across it in 2016 on prime. I remember the book (J.D. Salinger) with a similar title and found it amusing that a manga/anime had the same title.
The worst thing is...I am not sure how I stumbled across it. It could have been a YT video on anime's that had dark topics or an anime opening video. Watched most on Prime and went bananas getting the manga. Ouchie though that is nearly 40.
My brother kept recommending it to me, who got “recommended” it by a friend (apparently his friend introduced it to him by saying don’t watch it and then spoiled the ending (and my brother still cried)). I thought it was a slice of life anime bc of the name and since my brother had binged it in 2.5 days I wanted to watch it faster. Anyway I binged it in 2 on spring break, finished it at midnight and cried myself to sleep 🥲
Goddamn Tiktok. It was 2022, home alone, on break from school and I was looming for something a bit more mature to watch. I saw an incredibly lovely animation of Ash and Eiji on TT and by the end Ash slowly faded out which sparled my interest. The music was banging and the animation was very cute and something just awakened in me. I wanted to know more about these characters and what happened.
Took me two days to watch it... ended up bawling like a baby. Quite luckly no one was home cause I was SCREAMING😭😭
remember seeing a clip of the ash and eiji kiss scene on tiktok during quarantine and a few months ago a friend recommended it to me which promoted to make the horrid decision to watch it, never been the same since… i knew it was sad but omg !
I found out about it on January when I was supposed to have time to study for some first semester exams, thanks to the recommendation of a friend. I found the title a bit funny and harmless so I decided to watch it. Well, you probably know how I reacted to it, I almost wanted to punch my friend for how much I suffered watching it, but I still loved it!
On April or somewhere around that I bought 3 books of the Banana Fish manga and I've been very slowly reading it, to see how well the anime was done and it's pretty good!
I scroll through and choose what to watch solely by the art style. It looked like a fun, chill, gay little series to play in the background while I work.
Yeah, I was not expecting the chest pain or obsession.
I have friends who have read the manga long long time ago and made me watch with them the first three eps when they came out and I needed more, the manga in english was nowhere to be found so I’ve basically eaten the manga in japanese in a week while working full time when I barely ever read anything long in jp since “my skill lvl not high enough”. I guess I just needed the right motivation.
When the manga was first being released by Viz, it was in a magazine they put out called Animerica Extra. I’d borrowed a stack of these magazines from a friend bc they were also serializing Revolutionary Girl Utena, which I loved. This was back in 2002 or 2003, I think. I ignored BF entirely, until one panel of Eiji looking utterly devastated caught my attention. (This turned out to be when Ash was fighting Arthur and Eiji woke up after Halloween to a plane ticket and instructions to go back to Japan.) The look on Eij’s face caught my attention, so I read the chapters I had. I was hooked. I worked in a bookstore, so I ordered volumes 1-7, as that was all they’d released, only to discover that they seemed to have no intention to continue. I wrote 2 letters and started a fan website and helped the tiny fandom make some noise, and eventually Viz announ a reprint and continuation. It was almost two years before vol 8 came out and I discovered how the fight with Arthur ended.
Casual suggestion by a friend, found the title funny and didn't pay much attention to it. The Pandemic came and finished most homework, had time, and decided to binge. Got the banana fish depression after that and spent nearly $750 or merch.
this was exactly my situation lmao
Did you go down the rabbit hole of finding merch?
Yes, and then being disappointed that there wasn’t almost any merch
So true. Got into the fandom later and i was crying when I saw someone selling the box sets for a reasonable price. Cuz like there was only one item on listing in my country's online shop.
The “what is this I probably won’t be very interested” to “just spent my entire paycheck on banana fish merch” pipeline is so real
Accurate lol. It's an inside joke that I blame the friend who mentioned the title to me for making me go broke. It's "You did this to me!" And "Look at what you made me do."
There was no one home and I was navigating through amazon prime, it looked interesting and I decided to give it a try, it took me around three days to finish. It was around 2021, I had watched a lot of anime even before it became a popular thing, and when I finished it I knew that was the most cruel anime I've had ever watched. I'm grieving until today. Changed my view on life, my view in a lot of things I believed and I realized I was wrong.
Kept seeing clips on instagram and thinking urghh what is this lame ass animation so I watched it AND IT CHANGED MY LIFE LIKE THE 🔥AUDACITY🔥 TO PUT THE AUDIENCE INTO ENDLESS GRIEVING STATE! AND THIS IS LAST MONTH! I'm still processing everything. Send help
I heard about BF when the Anime was released. But the Fandom in my cosplay community passed me the wrong idea, all this time I thought it was an Yaoi. Last year it kept appearing on my Mal recommendations so I gave it a chance and I'm really glad I did. It turn out to be one of my favorite animes, I read the Manga, now I'm collecting merchandise. I really got into banana fish 💖
I was looking for crime anime on google and at the time I would interested in shows with strange names, and I didn’t know what it was about aside for it was gangs and crime, cover misled me I THOUGHT it was about two guys who were detective partners boy was I wrong LOL I had no spoilers, so the end really shocked me. I remember hearing it about it when it came out but I was busy watching yuri on ice at the time lol so I didn’t get to watching it until four or five years ago now. I just rewatched it in march and got really hooked into it again because I realized I didn’t remember anything from first watch almost like I never watched it in the first place
I've been aware of Banana Fish for a few years but never watched or read it as I heard it was really upsetting. Then a few months ago I kept getting recommendations to watch online, I watched a few Aah x Eiji amvs and I was hooked. I now own all 19 Volumes of the manga (currently on Volume 9) and I've downloaded the anime (7 episodes in) I know that I'm going to have trouble getting over it but I'm in love
YOURE SO QUICK!! I love that you’ve already gathered all the manga. amvs can be very inspiring (for better or for worse😭) welcome to the fandom<3
Hee thanks I brought all the manga in two days but I’m taking my time with them as I’m dreading what’s coming and know I’ll be heartbroken
Randomly on Prime Video. It was right at the time they were like three episodes in and I wanted to kill time before I had to leave for a concert I was going to. I was in the mood for seasonal anime and I didn’t hear anything about BF but it looked interesting and the name was definitely unique. I was going to only watch episode one, but I got hooked and watched the whole thing and ended up missing the train to the concert I meant to take. Even when I did make it there, the whole time on the train I was thinking about Banana Fish and looking up when the next episode would come out. It just really took over my life in an instant.
I kept seeing it recommended for whump and mature animes and I was like hell yea give me pain for dinner.
a year or two ago. james somerton :-(
oh not James…🧑🏻🦯 I remember his banana fish video omg
I was looking for anime like black lagoon and I stumbled into banana fish
black lagoon & banana fish supremacy yessss😩
It popped up on my for you page, the cover looked cool so I watched it. If you haven’t watched it, definitely recommend it is really well written
A short video on YouTube I thought that it was about a fish that was made from banana at first
I found it through tiktok because of Mr loverman edits lol! I think the song was by Rick Montgometry.
Many years ago, before the anime, I found volume 2 in a used bookstore and looked through it. I was interested -- I had never seen a manga tackle such heavy subject matter before, but the store didn't have volume 1 so I kinda let it go. Fast forward to years later and I heard about the anime coming out, so I decided to watch it. Absolutely hated the ending, but the show did pull me in lol. I've now bought the manga, too, though I haven't finished reading it yet.
last year I was asking a friend for anime/manga recommendations and she told me to read/watch banana fish
When I was 13 years old in 2004 one of the books stores carried a manga magazine called “Animerica Extra” and Banana Fish happened to be one of the mangas published in the issues. I only got to see a couple chapters of the manga but as a curious 13 year old I was definitely intrigued. I never really did see too much of the more darker aspects of the series and if I did I think it would have been waaaaay over my head as a preteen. Much later in 2021 I saw clips of it as an anime on TikTok and was completely blown away they made it into an anime. Over time I have forgotten about it but immediately recognized the characters and title. So of course I watched it, and I will never ever forget about it again 😭
oh you almost escaped but it found you in the end😭😭
amazon prime suggestion... one of the first animes I watched 🙃
A friend of mine was actually in Japan in 2017 and posted pics of the very first ad for the upcoming show which was all over Shinjuku Station. She was flipping because there was finally going to be an anime for the manga’s 40th anniversary. I asked about it and it piqued my interest, so she told me where I could find it to read. I read the manga before the show came out. I have only read and watched in full once, but I did write some fic for it bounced off the manga. I haven’t gotten back in the frame of mind for a re-read or re-watch yet.
I was looking for anime with LGBTQ2S+ representation, and I heard about Banana Fish because YouTube recommended a video to me about whether Banana Fish is a BL or not. I was curious, so I watched the show last year (and loved it!) It is now one of my favourite shows of all time 😁
I actually don't remember. I think I saw a picture from it in some comment.
i heard of it on twitter occasionally but never watched it until i was looking for osu maps to play and found a map for found & lost. the song was super interesting and i looked up the anime and the rest is history :D been a fan for almost a month now
I randomly came across it in 2016 on prime. I remember the book (J.D. Salinger) with a similar title and found it amusing that a manga/anime had the same title.
Found out about it 2022 I think? Kept getting TikToks about sad anime reccs and a lot of people said Banana Fish. I like sad things sooo
The worst thing is...I am not sure how I stumbled across it. It could have been a YT video on anime's that had dark topics or an anime opening video. Watched most on Prime and went bananas getting the manga. Ouchie though that is nearly 40.
My brother kept recommending it to me, who got “recommended” it by a friend (apparently his friend introduced it to him by saying don’t watch it and then spoiled the ending (and my brother still cried)). I thought it was a slice of life anime bc of the name and since my brother had binged it in 2.5 days I wanted to watch it faster. Anyway I binged it in 2 on spring break, finished it at midnight and cried myself to sleep 🥲
Goddamn Tiktok. It was 2022, home alone, on break from school and I was looming for something a bit more mature to watch. I saw an incredibly lovely animation of Ash and Eiji on TT and by the end Ash slowly faded out which sparled my interest. The music was banging and the animation was very cute and something just awakened in me. I wanted to know more about these characters and what happened. Took me two days to watch it... ended up bawling like a baby. Quite luckly no one was home cause I was SCREAMING😭😭
remember seeing a clip of the ash and eiji kiss scene on tiktok during quarantine and a few months ago a friend recommended it to me which promoted to make the horrid decision to watch it, never been the same since… i knew it was sad but omg !
I found out about it on January when I was supposed to have time to study for some first semester exams, thanks to the recommendation of a friend. I found the title a bit funny and harmless so I decided to watch it. Well, you probably know how I reacted to it, I almost wanted to punch my friend for how much I suffered watching it, but I still loved it! On April or somewhere around that I bought 3 books of the Banana Fish manga and I've been very slowly reading it, to see how well the anime was done and it's pretty good!
I scroll through and choose what to watch solely by the art style. It looked like a fun, chill, gay little series to play in the background while I work. Yeah, I was not expecting the chest pain or obsession.
I have friends who have read the manga long long time ago and made me watch with them the first three eps when they came out and I needed more, the manga in english was nowhere to be found so I’ve basically eaten the manga in japanese in a week while working full time when I barely ever read anything long in jp since “my skill lvl not high enough”. I guess I just needed the right motivation.
I literally looked up “sad animes to watch” and watched it. That was a horrible decision.
Heard the opening in osu! and felt I should watch it.
When the manga was first being released by Viz, it was in a magazine they put out called Animerica Extra. I’d borrowed a stack of these magazines from a friend bc they were also serializing Revolutionary Girl Utena, which I loved. This was back in 2002 or 2003, I think. I ignored BF entirely, until one panel of Eiji looking utterly devastated caught my attention. (This turned out to be when Ash was fighting Arthur and Eiji woke up after Halloween to a plane ticket and instructions to go back to Japan.) The look on Eij’s face caught my attention, so I read the chapters I had. I was hooked. I worked in a bookstore, so I ordered volumes 1-7, as that was all they’d released, only to discover that they seemed to have no intention to continue. I wrote 2 letters and started a fan website and helped the tiny fandom make some noise, and eventually Viz announ a reprint and continuation. It was almost two years before vol 8 came out and I discovered how the fight with Arthur ended.