Nearly one year after Amazon pulled its controversial AI English dub of Banana Fish, the critically acclaimed Boys’ Love drama is finally getting a real English dub courtesy of Netflix. Banana Fish will officially return to streaming on Netflix this summer, following its recent delisting from Amazon’s Prime Video in early July.
Netflix, in another show of confidence in its new anime strategy, officially announced it has acquired the 2018 thriller Banana Fish, produced by MAPPA, the studio behind Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man. Additionally, the former Prive Video anime exclusive will finally receive its first English dub, produced by real human voice actors, rather than the short-lived AI dub introduced by Amazon in 2025.
Notably, Netflix’s acquisition of Banana Fish comes hot on the heels of Prime Video delisting the title from its streaming service in July of this year. And, almost like a flex of its streaming budget, it is also producing a French dub for the series. Banana Fish comes to Netflix in the U.S. on Aug. 12, 2026.
Netflix Gives Banana Fish the Official English Dub Fans Have Been Waiting For
English voice actor Brandon McInnis will provide the voice of Ash Lynx in the official Netflix dub of Banana Fish, while Jonathan Tanigaki will portray the role of Eiji Okumura. The French dub will feature Sébastien Baulain and Grégory Laisné in the respective roles.
Banana Fish ran for 24 episodes from July 5, 2018, to Dec. 20, 2018, originally premiering in Japan on Fuji TV and worldwide on Prime Video. Fans and critics alike praised Banana Fish for its highly engaging crime story, which pulled no punches in its depiction of violence, drugs and abuse in its portrayal of New York in the 1980s. Not to mention the captivating chemistry between its troubled male leads.
It’s because of the anime’s high praise that fans blasted Amazon for testing out its controversial AI dubbing program on the acclaimed Boys’ Love drama, successfully getting the streamer to pull it from its service before it spread to other titles. As one would expect, anime fans are over the moon that Netflix is finally giving them a real English dub of their favorite anime series, nearly 10 years after its original release.
The Banana Fish manga by Akimi Yoshida is published in the U.S. by Viz Media. The English publisher officially describes the story as:
“Vice City: New York in the 80s… Nature made Ash Lynx beautiful; nurture made him a cold, ruthless killer. A child runaway brought up as the adopted heir, hatchet man, and sex toy of ‘Papa’ Dino Golzine, the East Coast’s Corsican crime lord, Ash is now at the rebellious age of seventeen — forsaking the kingdom of power and riches held out by the devil who raised him, preferring a code he can live with among a small but loyal gang of street thugs.”
“But his ‘Papa’ can’t simply let him go — not when the hideous secret that drove Ash’s older brother mad in Vietnam has suddenly fallen into his insatiably ambitious hands. It’s exactly the wrong time for Eiji Okamura, a pure-hearted young photographer from Japan, to arrive in NYC and make Ash Lynx’s acquaintance… and fall with him into the bloody whirlpool of pride, greed, lust and wrath unleashed by the enigma code-named Banana Fish…”
- Release Date
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2018 – 2018
- Directors
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Hiroko Utsumi
- Writers
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Hiroshi Seko
