Banana Fish

This felt a lot like the manga equivalent of an exploitation film. We practically get the shots of characters on 42nd street, in front of the array of various grindhouse movie theaters. However, unlike exploitation films, this manga has a production valume you can see on the page. Akimi Yoshida has an art style that reminds me, a lot of Katsuhiro Otomo, from the way she draws faces, to the detail in her background.

If I was to lay one complaint at her work, it's that she doesn't draw black people very well. It's not that the characters are drawn like Black Sambo (like some artists have a bad habit of doing - lookin' at you, Akira Toriyama). The character of “Skip” is supposed to be a black kid in his mid-teens - but his lips are drawn just a little too big. It's not so much that it's a caricature, but it's enough to stand out and be jarring.