Controversial Amazon Anime Finds Its Way To Netflix

In 2025, one of the biggest anime to make waves in the anime community was gaining notoriety for all the wrong reasons. Said franchise first got its start in the 1980s with a manga from creator Akimi Yoshida, having an original run that ran for nearly a decade. In 2018, the franchise finally received its own anime adaptation, long after the source material’s debut. Unfortunately for fans, the long-awaited anime never made its way to the West originally, but finally received an English Dub last year. Now, the controversial series has arrived on Netflix with a brand-new dub that undoes the mistakes of Amazon.

Banana Fish is now available to stream on Netflix, most likely thanks to the partnership that the streaming service forged with MAPPA earlier this year. For those who don’t know, Studio MAPPA was the production company responsible for bringing the story of Ash Lynx to the screen. On top of the anime hitting the platform, Netflix has another big victory for anime fans, as a brand-new English Dub is attached to the show’s return. The cast includes Brandon McInnis as Ash, Jonathan Tanigaki as Eiji, Keith Silverstein as Max, and Christopher Swingle as Dino, to name a few. You can check out a new clip from Banana Fish’s English Dub below. If you’re subscribed to Netflix, you can watch the series by clicking here.

The Original Banana Fish A.I. Controversy

Artificial intelligence has been growing in many entertainment mediums in recent years, with many fans and creators adamantly against the use of technology in the anime industry. While many uses of A.I. might be a part of anime’s actual animation, Amazon previously decided to try to forego using human beings for Banana Fish’s English dub. Instead, the voices were automated, and most fans agreed that the resulting dub was far worse than what humans might have produced. On top of Banana Fish, Amazon also created A.I. English Dubs for Vinland Saga and No Game No Life, though the company has since erased the dubs following fan backlash, with no other artificial intelligence dubs confirmed for the future.

Unfortunately, MAPPA has not confirmed whether the studio will ever return to weave new stories in the Banana Fish universe. Since it’s been years since the anime adaptation began and ended, it doesn’t seem as though MAPPA is planning to return to Ash’s world to finish what the first season started. Following the controversy, creators and voice actors alike rallied against the use of A.I. in the industry, and ever since, Amazon has backed off from using the tech within the medium. Still, as the technology advances with each passing year, it would come as no surprise if more controversies erupt from the use of artificial intelligence in the anime sphere.

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