LIBRARY IS ‘BANANA’S
Japanese anime hit has NYPL full of fans
Japanese tourists are going bananas for the New York Public Library.
Fans of the anime series “Banana Fisshu,” or “Banana Fish” in English, are flocking to the flagship branch on Fifth Avenue — much to the surprise of the staff there, The Post has learned.
The series — which is set in New York — ends with the main character, teenage gang leader Ash Lynx, dying in a chair in the iconic Rose Main Reading Room, smiling and clutching a letter from his photojournalist friend Eiji Okumura.
Since the series, which originally appeared as a comic book by Akimi Yoshida from 1985 to 1994, was rebooted as a TV show in 2018, there’s been a demand for all things “Banana Fish.”
And that includes miniature replicas of Rose Room chairs that go for $30 a pop at the NYPL gift shop.
“I have been in retail for 30 years, and I’ve never seen a phenomenon like this,” said Krista Rauth, the library’s associate director of retail initiatives. “People are buying the chair because the character sits in the chair, contemplates things in the chair and dies in the chair.”
The gift shop’s revenue for the 2019 fiscal year hit nearly $5.6 million, compared with $2.8 million five years ago — and workers are attributing it all to the “Banana Fish” craze, an NYPL spokesperson said.
“People have been asking about the reading room and have been going real hard buying all the little tourist gifts like the chair,” said gift-shop worker Meghan R., who wouldn’t give her last name.
“We think ‘Banana Fish’ is funny, but it’s bringing in money,” she said.
The Japanese tourism company Kinki Nippon Tourist Kanto operates a $2,327 travel package that hits all the Big Apple locations featured in the story, which also include the Museum of Natural History, Grand Central Terminal, Chinatown and the
Staten Island Ferry terminal.
About 80 fans with the group toured the library Tuesday, snapping photos inside the Rose Room, with some even holding up small cutouts of the characters locked in an embrace to snap photos.
Red roses have also been dropped off at chair 378, where Ash perishes.
One “Banana Fish” fan even went as far as to make replica’s of Eiji’s letter, which says “My soul is always with you,” and posted the images of it at the chair on Twitter. When a tour with the company visited Saturday, the gift shop sold 59 of the minichairs, up 23 percent from the previous Saturday, Rauth said.
“We are also finding Japanese tourists coming in on their own buying the chair,” she added.
Rauth marveled at the wave of attention: “This is another country, and people are coming here to see the New York Public Library.”