UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA

KAMPUS PUNCAK PERDANA

FAKULTI FILEM, TEATER DAN ANIMASI

FTA 412
ACADEMIC WRITING
ASSIGNMENT 2

PREPARED BY:
NUR ANIS AMNI BINTI MOHD ADNAN

STUDENT ID:
2020983319

GROUP:
FF2381A

LECTURER:
DR. AHMAD KAMAL BASYAH SALLEHUDDIN
TUTOR:
PUAN JUAINA AHMAD FADZIL
In Banana Fish, the story revolves around a fictional New York City, ruled by a mafia

organization. Akimi Yoshida did a brave move by inserting such issues; corruption, gang

wars, the use of illegal substances on humans, human trafficking and more. These tropes

were still unfamiliar in the 80’s Japanese comic or manga since the Japanese are conservative

people, meaning they did not know much about topics that are sensitive. Yoshida was ahead

of her time and is the sole reason for other shoujo manga artists to implement serious topics

in their own comic. Banana Fish presents its dark and negative issue through the proposition

od an unstable character traumatized by his negative experiences which damaged his mental

health. This argument can be supported through portraying the uses of drugs and PTSD

trigger through child abuse, relationships among people, and growth of an unstable character.

The first section provides a general discussion of the usage of LSD and psilocybin to

cure a person’s mental health. LSD or lysergic acid diethylamide is a mood-changing

chemical and synthetically made from lysergic acid, founded in ergot fungus that grows on

rye and other grains. It is produced in a crystal-like form but then dilutes into liquid for

distribution as an ingestible form. LSD does not have any smell, colourless, and bitter in

taste. This type of drug is commonly known as “acid”, and the effect onto an individual’s

mind can be called as a “trip”. It is described to be stimulating, pleasurable, or mind-altering,

but in the end, it can cause a terrifying experience to their mind called “bad trip”. For

psilocybin, it is a hallucinogenic substance that has some similar effects like the LSD, but it is

ingest through certain types of mushroom grown in certain regions; Europe, South America,

Mexico and the United States. Similar to LSD, it provides feelings of euphoria and sensory

distortion that are common to the hallucinogenic types of drugs [ CITATION Dav19 \l 17417 ].

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) stated that both of these drugs are under Schedule 1
drug, meaning that it has a very high potential of abuse, no official accepted medical

treatments and it is lack of safety for to be accepted as a medical supervision. In contrast to

evidence which presents the view that LSD and psilocybin is not recommended to be used as

a medical preference, an alternative perspective illustrates that these drugs may cure a

person’s mental illness. According to Ayelet Waldman, taking low doses of LSD could help

fixing depression for every few days because apparently, some researchers do suggest taking

these hallucinogenic drugs to cure depression. Studies have shown that it could help growing

brain cells and form new connections in regions that typically exhibit cell death from mental

health disorder [ CITATION Cam20 \l 17417 ]. Same as psilocybin, it could also reduce an

individual’s depression without having to alter their emotions. Nevertheless, these little

evidences are not enough to conclude that it is safe to use. Effects such as rapid heart rates,

hallucination, distortion of mind, anxiety and depression may still occur, and it would take

weeks or months for it to be fully cured from them. The anime Banana Fish has a portrayal of

hallucinogenic drugs and it is the main object and clue in the series. For example, Banana

Fish or known as “B1” is a type of drug that acts similarly as LSD and psilocybin. The

ingredients of B1 also came from some sort of cactus named peyote originated from South

America. B1’s effects on people are also similar, but it includes savagery and aggression,

turning a person’s behaviour into something un-human like. One of the victims of B1 is

Ash’s brother, Griffin, who was a soldier served for the Iraq War. Either he gets injected to

cure his post-traumatic events of war or experiment conducted by the government. In

conclusion, both LSD and psilocybin are dangerous to mental health although there are

proofs of treatment by using thee drugs. Seeking professional help is a lot more helpful and

convincing to treat mental health.

 Figure 1. The substance of B1 resembles like cocaine. Taken from ‘Banana Fish’
(Episode 17)

Next, violence and sexual abuse towards innocent children causes horrible impact

throughout their lives. Violence against children includes various types of violence forms that

were targeted to children under 18 years old, whether perpetrated by parents or caregivers,

peers, partners (in a romantic way), or even strangers [ CITATION SBe19 \l 17417 ]. Evidently, in

2018, it is estimated that around 1 billion children in the whole world became the victims of

abuse. Child abuse does not choose religions, ethnicity, or any income group. According to

Psychological Today, physical abuse involves an act that is non-accidental harming of

children like beating, burning, or breaking bones. While verbal abuse involves harming a

child by accident, for example, belittling them, threatening them in physical or sexual way. A

study has been conducted upon this issue and the results are one in four girls and one in eight

boys are sexually abused before the age of 18. The act of sexual abuse upon a child is

unforgivable, as it is an exposure of sexual activities to a child that does not know what it is

or what consent is about. Such inappropriate behaviours including touching the private parts

of a minor, someone exposing their private parts to them, oral-genital contact, exhibitionism,

voyeurism and also pornography. Maltz (2002) defines this crude act: “sexual abuse occurs
whenever one person dominates and exploits another by means of sexual activity or

suggestion” (Maltz, 2001a, as cited in Maltz, 2002, p. 321). Children will get life-long

impacts on their physical and mental health, examples of those impacts can be as worst as

resulting in death or committing suicide because they kept thinking about predators in mind,

and making them to want to end their lives. Furthermore, other impacts such as impair brain

and nervous system development, coping in negative and health-risk behaviours, extreme

inappropriate behaviours shown by a child and many more. Factors that contributes to child

abuse are a combination of individual, relational, community and societal factors, for

example, lack of family cohesion, social isolation of families, poor parent-child relationships

and negative interactions, and the violence environment of a community. In the series Banana

Fish, Ash Lynx is a victim of a sexual child abuse, and he has all the factors that made him

turn into the victim. He gets neglected by his own parents, and was taken by a mafia

organisation, grooming to becoming a prey of thirsty middle-aged paedophiles. As a result,

17-year-old Ash runs and is the boss of a gang and does sorts of negative behaviour that

includes smoking and murdering. In summary, abusing an innocent child is a wrongful act

and the victims must be protected by someone who they can trust.

Finally, victims of sexual abuse must endure PTSD triggers after going through their

traumatic lives during childhood. After having to experience their awful childhood, they will

have to experience PTSD that made them scared to interact with people. PTSD or Post-

Traumatic Stress Disorder is a psychological reaction of traumatic events which are

disturbing than most ordinary human troubles. [ CITATION Moh16 \l 17417 ] . Victims with

PTSD may go on for days, weeks or even months re-experiencing those events, either around

with trusted people or in nightmares. They also show a diminished responsive to their

surrounding and memory disturbance. [ CITATION Moh16 \l 17417 ].

Other symptoms that these victims show are insomnia, decreasing sex drive, and the increase

sensitivity to sound. In psychological terms, they do suffer from anxiety, depression, and

anger issues by exploding over the slightest frustration. (Firdosi and Magroob, 2006).

Lonnigan and colleagues (1994) conducted a study between age and PTSD. It is reported that

younger children have more symptoms compared to older children. As mentioned before, in

the Banana Fish series, Ash Lynx is stated to be a victim of sexual child abuse by the mafia.

His appearance might look brave and strong, but he always experiences PTSD in his sleep or

meeting the mafia boss who groomed him. At one moment, he points a gun towards one of

his allies after having a nightmare about his predator. The evidence presented has shown that

children who are victims of physical and sexual abuse has a hard time to build their life

properly after crushing through these traumatic events.

References

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Organization: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-
children
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