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So I wanted to try more BL as there are so few. This came up a few times in recommendations so I thought I would give it a go.

It's a bit of a mixed bag to be honest.

I enjoyed it. Kind of. The good bits were fun and I really liked Takato from the main pairing. BUT!
It falls into the usual BL/Yaoi traps that are just icky. The relationship starts off bad. Improves. Goes terrible. Improves and ends up rather cute. But the bad makes a major impact on my final score. It could have been done so much better. It certainly had ... enough episodes to do it but a couple of times it went way too deep into dubcon territory. The first sexual encounter with Takato and Junta was awful. Straight up molestation. And not the first time either. When it was consenting, despite the censoring it was pretty hot. It worked out in the end, but left a slightly sour taste to the relationship. If you can get past the dub con parts, there are funny scenes and enjoyable characters. Just don't expect it to change the wheel in terms of Yaoi expectations.

Story: 6
Points mostly for the world building. It's standard yaoi romance with a nice bit of detail on the business the characters were involved it. Nothing stand out though.

Characters: 6
Most of that score is for Takato and some of the minor characters. Takato is a complex character. Tough on the outside, adorable when his guard is down. But a bit of a push over. If it wasn't for him I would have dropped this in all honesty.
Junta is more of a miss then a hit. He can be adorable and I love the little animation details with the feathers. BUT and it is a massive BUT he crosses the line way too many times for my liking. He has practically zero concept of boundaries.
There are plenty of minor characters with varying success.

Animation: 6
Clean and nice little details here and there. A touch ropey in places like in one scene it was clearly a missed step in the animation. But it's servicable.

Additional Spoilers:
The dubcon is pretty obvious and not just one character but at least three are guilty of it. Chihiro's entire introduction episode was creepy and cruel and almost caused me to drop the show. Worse still was the victim blaming in the episode by Junta towards Takato. Basically blaming him for the assault then essentially assaulting Takato himself. And the anime just shrugs it off and makes out Chihiro isn't that bad of a guy through the remainder. Then another character makes a random assault that adds NOTHING to the story or the characters. It's just there because apparently dubcon is sexy.

I don't want to spoil too much but don't let the other reviews fool you in regard a lack of cohesion. This is not an episodic anime. There is an over arching plot that rewards you. Every episode has a purpose. It's not window dressing.

My overall impression is it was a little slow to start but by episode 5 I couldn't stop watching. I'm now at episode 11 and cannot wait until 12 as everything comes to ahead. As for it's episodic nature, even without a grander arc every episode is still fascinating on it's own and I think that's what makes this stand ... out.

Don't give up on it. The reward is worth it.

Spoilers

This anime starts by completely fooling you on it's premise.

I thought it would be a gang type story where the two main protagonists on either side find common ground and the put upon Settie finds real stability in a life that so far was implied as lonely and aimless. Except after the first episode it skips to a prestigious school and the gang thing ends up being mostly resolved off screen and then it hits into the relationships and I felt dirty. And when I say relationship, I mean it in the very loosest of terms.

The anime continues to fool you by ... passing the main pairing and diving right into a second pair and it just continues downhill. The relationships portrayed are awful. There is little to no build up to why the pairs are together and the way they do get together is just gross emotional blackmail.

The younger couple has an outright "I won't be your friend anymore if you don't sleep with me" and that's almost it. The one given the ultimatum is left in an emotional pit. This was their childhood best friend who went away for a while and who he had only recently reconciled with and now he has been forced into a corner. The anime barely lasts on that with the boy who wanted to be friends caving in pretty quickly as they didn't want the alternative. I give it a little credit in that both are teens and the one who gave the ultimatum knew he had not expressed his feelings well. In that he had always considered them more then friends. But it still felt like nothing was learned beyond do it or else.

And that's the nice pairing. The main pair of Settie and Kousuke is all kinds of wrong. Kousuke has no excuse for how he uses Settie. Settie has a neglectful childhood with a mother whose a prostitute , joins a gang for a place to belong and muddles his way out with an unassumingly benign Kousuke helping him. The anime is very vague about that and isn't really interested in pursuing that plot point beyond a few hints here and there just to establish timeline. Almost pretending it's important.

Now don't get me wrong I think Kousuke cares about Settie but it's really hard to see through the lust he has for a boy at least 10 years younger then him. The anime when it focuses on the pair essential has Settie unsure where his feelings lie and Kousuke taking full advantage of this and Settie's desire for belonging. Like I said Hasekure (the ultimatum guy) of the first pairing had the excuse of being a hormonal teen but Kousuke is a grown man and worse is a teacher in the same school Settie goes to. So not only does Kousuke use what he knows about Settie's insecurities to push him into a relationship, he's taking advantage of a student and an underage one at that.

It's blackmail, abuse of power, emotional manipulation, and taking advantage of a minor amongst other things. It left me feeling gross and unpleasant in the end. Typical of a lot of BL that seems to think that's OK.

The only saving grace of this is the art style and some of the characters, namely Settie, Kensuke and their school friends that don't include Hasekure.

I would suggest you avoid this like the plague to avoid also being disappointed.

Edit: I gave it a second shot. I still stand by my original review but the art was pretty and it did have it's moments.

I won't add too many spoilers here.

I binged watched this anime in two days and was left with a multitude of feelings. The subject matter was dark but at the same time not overly graphic. A lot of things were heavily implied but lefty no doubt as to what happened.

The characters were a work of art. You could feel their motivations and emotions through the screen. So much so you rooted for characters who were clearly flawed because the story allowed you to understand their motivations without sugar coating them.

The ultimate win for the anime though was the relationship between the two ... main characters. It didn't feel forced or fake. It flowed as the plot flowed and in the end you couldn't help but root for them. The side characters also had depth that widened the world.

I won't go into details but the plot was full of twists and turns. Light and shade. Never dull. The whole dark underbelly was fully realised without taking away from the characters that lived in it.

The animation is the only real flaw I found in Banana Fish. It was mostly beautiful and I loved the designs. However the sidelong view you got of the characters faces was marred by overly fat chins that looked out of place as they occurred on every character; even those who on other angles had very slim looking chins.

Overall those minor quibbles get it a 9 rather then a perfect 10. If you don't mind mature subject matter and love a good character driven story then this is a must watch.