Hello,

I just wanted to say how much I deeply venerate you and appreciate the numerous Banana Fish analyses you’ve made as they’ve genuinely altered how I view and accept the uncomfortable truths life brings. More notably, I adore how you incorporate themes of psychology, existentialism, and corruption. How you analyze the arduous life Ash endures and the severe child abuse that was consequential because of it without undermining it shows your fortitude as the Banana Fish fandom back then, now even, thrived off malarkey and total disregard for the themes the show actively emphasized. Despite your most prominent works being made years ago, they’re so timeless and undoubtedly lingered on the souls of others because of how valuable and intellectual your insights were as they brought truth to fruition.

While reading your infamous Wandering In Endless Night, I was fascinated by your ability to capture the daily horrors Ash faces at such a young age and how it inadvertently made the readers ponder about theodicy. Why do children get subjected to this and why do the handful of legal systems meant to help them rarely provide them with substantial aid or prevention? Why does this inexorable force of injustice and evilness somehow triumph over any higher power? Questions of that nature kept looming across my mind because of how brilliantly you tackled dark themes such as Child Sexual Abuse, Child Exploitation, and Physical Abuse, and your critiques of the American justice system are executed with such precision. That doesn’t just evoke thoughts, it demands thoughts and meaningful discussions as you write with conviction, especially regarding how cruel and arbitrary life is.

As children, we’re conditioned to believe this narrative that the good guys always win and the bad guys always face consequences throughout all the stories and media we consume as it’s left long-lasting impacts on the subconscious which is why so many people simply couldn’t handle Banana Fish. As a child, I was obsessed with Avatar The Last Airbender and loved its themes of human unity and resilience against unjust systemic systems, ones that especially resonated with me were the importance of loving relationships and healing from abuse through craving out your destiny. I’m using this as an example because both of these pieces of media present and execute heavy topics without rudiment and how I projected my hopes of the freedom and healing that Zuko attained at the end onto Ash because of similar they were despite knowing the inevitable. I remember you mentioning that you created Wandering in Endless Night because you wanted to provide a new insight into the complex nature of Ash’s character by crafting a fanfic of what his life was probably like before Banana Fish even started as the majority of people created fanfics of a life where he moves to Japan with Eiji or even just fanfics about Eiji’s grief after he dies.

I recently wrote a Jungian-Psychology-inspired essay comparing Ash Lynx and Zuko, focusing on how the absence of maternal figures shaped their weakened anima and emotional journeys. It touches on their relationships with Eiji and Katara as representations of the healing feminine archetype. I too wanted to bring some nuance and unique perspectives to the discussions you’ve cultivated. I poured a lot into this and would be honored if you gave it a look. No pressure at all—I just wanted to share it with someone whose work helped transfigure my own:

https://www.tumblr.com/lavendermatchaprincess/779778680645894144/why-zuko-and-ash-lynx-struggle-with-their-own?redirect

Thank you for sharing your creativity and intertwining it through deep psychological analyses of characters from vastly different genres!

With admiration, Kinzi

This is one of the nicest messages I've ever received. Honestly, I'm totally floored and honored by what you've said and by how much you think of my analyses and stories for "Banana Fish". "Banana Fish" remains, for me, one of the most important and powerful works I've ever read/watched, and I truly wish more people knew about it and appreciated it. When I wrote "Wandering in Endless Night", really, the most I could have asked and hoped for was for it to draw more people's attention to the work that inspired it. But knowing my story in and of itself was so inspiring to you means the world. Really, it remains the story I'm most proud of in terms of the topics it explores and the way I was able to execute it. I've heard from enough people about it, similar to you, that I feel pretty good in saying I did an okay job, and it was always important to me to remain true to the reality of "Banana Fish" itself, and its refusal to sugarcoat or placate or render more palatable the topics it was discussing and exploring. I know a lot of people in particular rage against that aspect of the story, and probably in turn would feel the same about my depiction of Ash's life pre-canon, but to me, it's that rawness and realness and refusal to soften the reality facing children in Ash's position that makes "Banana Fish" such a powerful and important story. I definitely didn't want to betray that. I feel like a lot of people in the "Banana Fish" fandom, as you point out, have a tendency to retreat into denial, either through writing stories that "fix" the ending, i.e. that have Ash survive, or by badmouthing Akimi Yoshida and accusing her of all manner of ridiculous things, just because they don't like that she ended Ash's story with his death.

But in my view, Ash dying was always vital to driving home the tragic reality of Ash's life. Without his death, the audience could never appreciate the scope of injustice and cruelty that defined his life, they could never appreciate or feel properly enraged at the unfairness of his life if he were somehow able to magically overcome it all and ride off into the sunset to live happily ever after. I feel like that's what people don't get about this story.

So with "Wandering In Endless Night", I tried to stay true to that spirit of bleak reality and to capture that sense of inevitable tragedy.

Ash's life was destroyed by the abuse he suffered, and I don't think it's wrong to acknowledge that. People always want to cling to this narrative that all things can be overcome. That all suffering and injustice and cruelty can be defeated. But while insisting on that narrative, it also pushes a frankly dangerous undermining of the seriousness of abuse, particularly, in the case of "Banana Fish", child sexual abuse, and the devastating consequences of it. By insisting that all forms of abuse, no matter how severe, can be overcome, that it doesn't have to destroy a person's life, we also insist that the abuse in question isn't really that bad. But it is. It is that bad. Ash is a character who demonstrates, unequivocally, that child abuse can and does destroy lives, and that if it's bad enough, there can even be cases where there's simply no coming back from it. I know people don't like to hear that, but it's the truth, and the reason I think it's such an important truth to acknowledge is because it's when we finally stop pretending otherwise and finally stop retreating into this fantasy that anything can be overcome with just some hard work and determination, or with enough support and love, that we can finally understand the gravity of child abuse, which in turn will spur us on to doing more to prevent it. If we acknowledge that not everyone who's suffered abuse can or will recover, that some of them will even die as a consequence of that abuse, then it gives us greater incentive in trying to stop the abuse from happening in the first place. It's pretending otherwise that basically gives us a pass and allows us to turn away when a child is being abused, because we can then tell ourselves that "it will be okay".

I think Ash's story makes so many people uncomfortable because he forces us to acknowledge that, no, it won't always be okay, and sometimes, oftentimes, people that suffer the way Ash did, end up dead. Ash's story forces us to acknowledge and accept the true tragedy of child abuse and the consequences wrought by it.

Anyway, that's basically what I was trying to highlight with my story, and also with all of my analyses posts on "Banana Fish". It was always important to me not to shy away or hide from the brutal reality of Ash's life, because to do so would be, in my mind, an insult to the pain he suffered, and which, by extension, real-life victims of child abuse suffer. I'm glad to know that it had its desired effect with some people, at least.

I'll definitely check out your essay! I'm not familiar with "The Last Airbender", though I've heard plenty about it! Maybe it will inspire me to give it a watch! Thank you so much again! I really can't tell you how much I appreciate your message and kind words. And hopefully, this in turn will inspire others to check out "Banana Fish", too.