shame that they had to omit one of my fave eiji moments haha
been seeing some talk about how eiji is super cute and silly here, which i’m not going to deny lol, but i also think it’s possible that he was trying to de-escalate the situation with his own brand of humour. i mean, he may not be the brightest bulb in the box but this dude can be very perceptive about things.
So Akimi Yoshida use actors as a inspiration/reference for some of her characters in Banana Fish back in the 80s, these are the ones we know of from the list above
—
Hironobu Nomura – Eiji Okumura
River Phoenix, ( early version Stefan Edberg )
– Ash Lynx
Sting – Frederick Arthur
Harrison Ford – Max Lobo
Danny DeVito – Jenkins
???? – Shorter Wong
???? – Charlie
???? – Shunichi Ibe
—
If anybody in this fan-base knows how to read Japanese plz help us complete the list , that would be great.
This is super interesting! Old articles like this are the real gems, thanks for sharing. Let me add the others and translate what I can from the descriptions near each picture. Since it’s small I could barely read some kanji, I hope I didn’t make mistakes.
River Phoenix – Ash Lynx ▶ “Because the Phoenix theory was popular among the fans, it’s something that I knew after all.”
Hironobu Nomura – Eiji Okumura
▶ “This one as well was popular among some JUNE enthusiasts.”
Sting – Frederick Arthur ▶ “His eccentricity is his charm, maybe?”
Harrison Ford – Max Lobo ▶ “Lobo is more jerkish.”
SunPlaza Nakano-kun (Japanese musician and writer) – Shorter Wong ▶ “There is nothing to say, right?”
Hirata Mitsuru (Japanese actor) – Shunichi Ibe
▶ “If anything, Shunichi is a more determined/resolute person.“
William Katt (American actor) – Charlie
Danny DeVito – Jenkins
Thank you so much for translating !!!
i did a rough translation of the
rest of the interview 😮
——–
Q: I see. There are a lot of long-running series among your
works, aren’t there? Most of them are very lengthy, and even your so-called short
story collections are serials, aren’t they? So, I think it’s fair to say that they’re the kind of
long series with the same protagonist throughout.
Yoshida: That’s simply because it’s troublesome. It’s really
troublesome to have to come up a new protagonist, new situations and new
settings, so I’ll consider whether it’s possible to keep using the same ones
where I can. That’s honestly it.
Q: Going back to the topic of the Chinese mafia once again… Have
you watched “Year of the Dragon”?
Yoshida: Yeah, I have.
Q: I think that the Chinese mafia has become a fad lately… Speaking
of older movies, the “mafia” had always referred to the Italian mafia. But now,
I get the feeling that the world of the overseas Chinese is getting quite
popular. However that’s only in the past 2 years or so, whereas in Banana Fish,
the Chinese mafia already has a large presence since the very beginning. I think
you’re quick to get news on that.
Yoshida: Rather than being quick, it was just bound to come
up when dealing with the topic of drugs and things like the Golden Triangle. Chinese
people and the like would just have to come up at some point.
Moonlit Spires 