Banana Fish

Posting this in order to refer to this in later times when necessary.
Some of the stuff here may be inaccurate as it's 2am and I'm yapping, there are also way more stuff that can be added as arguments and examples


Garden of light literally has Sing saying that they "did love each other, maybe the way lovers do", "they were connected to each other, soul to soul".
I think you definitely missed something while reading Banana Fish, and if you didn't read banana fish and only saying stuff based on the anime (where they removed Eiji's personality completely) and garden of light, then you should definitely read it before saying things like that.

Disclaimer: I'm only talking about the manga here

Banana Fish isn't a BL, that's a fact. It is though, a queer story, based on the new queer cinema wave and the new american cinema wave. There are clear influences of some of the movies.
You need to see the extra official art, with it having Ash and Eiji drawn in the poses of films from the new queer cinema wave and the new american wave, in which the characters are in "homoerotic-homosexual" relationships that are based purely on emotion with mainly side characters mentioning their relationship. For example, in Midnight Cowboy one of the side characters suggest that the mc is gay.
Banana Fish takes direct influence from Midnight Cowboy, including the part about the main character struggle with gay men (spoiler: at some point he kills one).

I do think that Banana Fish shouldn't be reduced to be a romance story between Ash and Eiji, yes, but the relationship between them is real. I think the word "ship" can't encapsulate the relationship between Ash and Eiji, but it clearly wrong the view it as a "brotherhood" or platonic.

I don't want to sound aggressive or something, but next time don't say things like that without doing research and knowing what you're talking about, especially with an important piece of queer manga that influenced a big part of the "BL" genre.


(I also suggest you read California Monogatari, the precursor to Banana Fish)