Banana Fish Episode 14 Review: Tender is the Night

Episode 14 marks the beginning of the second cour of BANANA FISH!! After the conclusion of last week’s episode, things have taken another turn for the worst for Ash and the rest of the Banana Splits. Now that Arthur is out of the way, more baddies are gearing up to take down Ash. Will he be able to take them down? Or will he end up trapped in their tangled web? Let’s dive into Episode 14, ‘Tender is the Night’, and find out!

Plot

It’s the aftermath of the Ash/Arthur Title Match and everything is in disarray. Ash is being rushed into surgery, while Eiji sits in a jail cell contemplating his next move. Meanwhile, new threats plot against Ash and the Banana Splits.

Episode Highlights

New Opening Theme: The episode opens with a brand new opening theme: ‘FREEDOM’ by Blue Encount. ‘FREEDOM’ is thematically similar to the series’s first theme; another uptempo pop rock song that embodies the drama and angst the series has been building up since day one.

New Ending Theme: The second cour brings with it a few changes, most notably, a brand spankin’ new ending theme! Survive Said the Profit brings us another kickass theme for the series with their single, ‘Red’.

Hot Nurses Harem: In a moment of levity, Ash meets four female nurses that are more than happy to assist the young, bedridden hottie. Charlie bemoans it must be great being so hot and desired.

Blinded Me With Science: Ash is usually the smartest person in the room. In this week’s episode they actually give him an intelligence test and he not only aces it, but he points out errors in the test as well. When he’s explaining his rationale his voice is sped up comically, giving him a noticeably high pitched tone.

Themes & Trivia

Meaningful Title: All of the episode titles have been references to novels and short stories by famous American authors. This week’s episode is no different, borrowing its title from the fourth and final novel from American author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night. The novel was written during a low point in the author’s life and mirrors many of the events surrounding the hospitalization of his wife for schizophrenia. This is regarded as one of the author’s bleakest and best works, despite lackluster critical response during its initial publication.

Animal Metaphor: Yut Lung compares Ash to a beautiful untamable beast, while the scene focuses on a screen painting of a lone tiger. It’s obvious that this is meant to be representative of Ash, who is at this moment fighting for his life post operation.

Fibonacci Sequence/Series: While taking an IQ test for his public defender Ash stops to question him about one of the math questions, which leads into a discussion of the Fibonacci Sequence, which is a series of numbers in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. Ex: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8…

Rorschach test: As part of his IQ test Ash is given a Rorschach test, or Inkblot test, in which an individual is shown a series of indistinct images and asked to describe their perceptions of the images.

He’s a Genius: Ash’s IQ test results are revealed: 180! Based on that score Ash is genius level! That’s in the same range as most doctors and let’s remember that Ash has had no formal education!

Comments

Arthur was very much a mini boss and everything leading up to the final showdown between him and Ash last episode was child’s play when compared with the villains that have been set up for the second cour of the series. Ash is stuck in the hospital, vulnerable, while everyone else is out there using his unplanned respite to get a head start on phase two of their evil plans.

As someone that did read the manga prior to watching the series, everything after this point is leading up to the finale. Each and every action the characters make now are solidifying their fates and I can’t wait to see everything play out in these next few episodes!

Yut Lung just upgraded from minor threat to a major player when he used Banana Fish to drug his brother and finally break free from his family’s toxic nature. #Growth

Hitting Rock Bottom

Just when you didn’t things could get any worse for Ash and the Banana Splits, it does. The wheels are turning and the world keeps spinning, the second cour of BANANA FISH doesn’t slow down, keeping the stakes high. Whatever the future has in store for Ash and Co. you can bet it’s gonna be a pretty wild ride!

I’ll be back next week with another BANANA FISH review, but in the meantime, be sure to check out MANGA.TOKYO’s other amazing Fall 2018 reviews!!

NEXT TIME: The Garden of Eden