bananafish-n-angeleyes:

codenamed-bananafish:

the-black-sabbath:

I hate to say it but I have to be honest and the truth is that anime Eiji is pretty…flat.

By removing all his quips and remarks, Mappa is completely erasing a facet of his personality and that makes him much more one-dimensional which is honestly a shame because he is so much more than just a soft uwu boy.

It’s like Mappa is only focused on the ‘support’ aspect of Eiji that they forget that Eiji can be boyish and childish and fight back when he’s backed into a corner.

I’m really hoping they don’t screw up this upcoming arc for him because Eiji is really amazing and he does have depth.

Mappa really should’ve made Banana Fish at least two seasons long.

Case in point :

If MAPPA obliterates these moments in upcoming episodes, I’m gonna go after them with pitchforks and torches.

We’ve already lost a lot of sassy Eiji moments.

I 100% agree with everything being said but before I throw in my opinions I want to start by saying Mappa has done a lot of good with the adaptation. It’s done well to change/cut out elements from the manga that didn’t age well and, considering they’re adapting 19 vols. worth of content into 24 episodes, they’ve done a good job so far.

That being said this is an issue I’m glad has been brought up.

I understand that a lot of stuff was cut due to time constraints but there has been some decisions I quite frankly don’t understand.

For example the middle finger scene that was changed to being just a fist. I understand they both mean “fuck you” but the middle finger is more universally known and made more sense to the joke. Sure this could be censorship but considering this show has spoken freely about things like CP and rape, it’s a little odd.

The fact is that right now, Eiji’s character comes off as “uwu soft boi who me must protecc”. There’s nothing wrong with this but in a story with such three dimensional characters, he seems lack lustre in comparison.

Whilst in the manga he’s still a very sweet boy he’s also snarky, makes fun of american culture constantly, super determined and will 100% stand up for himself and others verbally. The only thing is that he’s not used to violence and is somewhat naive to US gang culture.

The upcoming arc is really where his best qualities shine.

(This next bit will be major spoiler territory so continue with caution.)

We will get to see Eiji lead Ash’s gang, we will see him confront yut-lung and we will even see him act violently so that he can save Ash. It will be a huge arc for Eiji’s character and a chance for Mappa to show off more aspects of Eiji’s character other than being a naive foreigner who offers comfort to others.

Even with his scene in episode 16 where he escapes Yut-lung, he came across as more timid and uncertain of himself than manga Eiji did.

I don’t think mappa need to stick 100% to the manga, I really don’t think that way. However, Eiji’s character has been somewhat pidgeon-holed into this soft boy archetype.

I really hope in the upcoming arc they do Eiji’s character justice.