Well, I don’t read or speak Chinese, so I can’t go very in depth with what his name means, but it does literally mean “moon.” And of course, Yut-Lung is associated with the moon, a shadow of Ash in many respects, the yin to his yang, amethyst to his jade (in the anime). So I can talk about his character in relation to Ash, if that helps, since I’ve been wanting to explore their foiling a bit more, and also Yut-Lung’s foiling with Eiji, and with Blanca.
Of course, the moon only shines because the sun’s light reflects on it. To an extent you could say this is symbolic of how Yut-Lung is kind of desperately scrambling for a new purpose in life post-revenge.
This is kind of true but also kind of a lie as we know. He wants to destroy the Lee conglomerate and himself with it because, like Ash, he’s suicidal.
So after he succeeds at this, and to succeed at this as well, he decides to make Ash his enemy because he’s petty and is mad Ash has someone to love and love him, while he thinks he has no one. He’s living for Ash, a reflection of Ash, but not in a healthy way because what happens if he actually won against Ash? Would he be happy? (The answer is no.)
Because Yut-Lung wants to be loved, deep down, and he truly believes he has no one, but that’s not true. He has Sing (again I’m not arguing this is romantic textually, but their relationship does in some ways parallel Ash and Eiji’s). But he can’t see that because he’s too blinded by focusing on the sun/Ash/Eiji/trying to be both Ash and Eiji. Like, he literally in the above scene walks off in Eiji’s direction after Eiji leaves, while Sing is right there asking him why he wants to die, and Sing says that he can’t just leave him.
And like, in the most recent episode, Yut-Lung clearly feels betrayed when he realizes Blanca only took the contract to protect Ash, and Sing helped him escape. He lacks the self-awareness to realizes Sing does care about him, and honestly so does Blanca in whatever broken way Blanca cares, but he’s pushing them away because of his obsessive focus on Ash. And in the latest episode as well, in the end he just says that he’s still focusing on Ash and wanting revenge on Ash now–and cue me screaming REALLY DUDE REALLY someone sit this child down and tell him to focus on himself and not on his failings.
Seeing himself as the moon could also be reinforcing that he sees himself as inferior to Ash, but also the same as Ash at the same time. It’s the same light, but it doesn’t emanate from him, or maybe this is overthinking but it does work so.
Despite seeking to destroy the Lees, Yut-Lung’s also still ironically putting a lot of weight on the name given to him, instead of seeking to create his own destiny and fate. It’s tragic. Ash is fighting tooth and nail to escape the system; Yut-Lung has already given up on that.
As another piece related to that and to Ash’s middle name… Ash does not want to be seen as an object. He hates that he’s treated like a commodity. Yut-Lung, on the other hand, true to his philosophy of taking things down from the inside, commodifies himself to an extent. Dino punches a hole through Ash’s ear unwillingly, and Ash gives up the jade as quickly as he can. Yut-Lung willingly adorns himself in amethysts or some kind of purple stone (which match his eyes, a la how Ash’s jade matches his eyes).
Again this speaks to Yut-Lung’s extremely low sense of self-worth (which is ironic because he puts on a haughty facade), and how he sees himself inherently as inferior, not just to Ash. He hates that his brothers treat him as inferior for having a different mother, but he also seems to believe that, and like Ash, is more than willing to become what he hates to destroy everything he hates and punish himself.
However, Ash isn’t the only one associated with the sun. So is Eiji.
And we’re also pretty clearly supposed to be comparing Eiji and Yut-Lung given his utter hatred of Eiji and determination to kill him because… he loves Ash and Ash loves him, or because Yut-Lung is jealous of Eiji getting to live how he always wanted to live.
He pretty clearly despises Eiji for precisely that reason: Eiji is a helpless little kid, and so is Yut-Lung. Like, he’s throwing actual tantrums. He can’t defend himself worth anything. But Yut-Lung doesn’t want to be seen as a helpless little kid in some ways (and yet paradoxically I’d argue he does in other senses, given how he behaves). He wants to be seen like Ash in many ways.
So let’s talk Blanca, who is the reason Yut-Lung’s dastardly scheme worked and Ash was taken back to Dino, and Ash and Eiji were separated. Given both characters’ association with the sun, this line of Sing’s is interesting:
Sing’s the adult in the room again, calling people out without even meaning to 😛 But going forward, Blanca is already kind of standing between Ash and Yut-Lung. He joined Yut-Lung to protect Ash, which hurts Yut-Lung, but he also does take his duty to Yut-Lung seriously and does care about him like he cares about Ash. I’d wager Yut-Lung isn’t entirely correct here: I think Blanca joined him to protect both of them.
Otherwise there was no need to take down an assassin and try to keep said assassin alive to interrogate. I think Blanca’s genuinely wanting to protect both of them, but he’s unwilling to fight the system to do it, which means he’s inherently bad at it. Like, honestly, Blanca. But again Yut-Lung can’t see it because not only is Blanca bad at it, but he focuses too much on Ash.
Blanca is of course an Ash foil, and exactly what Ash fears becoming: someone who has completely given up fighting the system, and thinks it’s pointless to do so. Blanca is blocking the sun because his lifestyle is literally something that would kill Ash and Eiji…
But at the same time, together with Sing, he’s one of two people who actually do care about Yut-Lung and therefore has the potential to help Yut-Lung realize his own worth doesn’t come from opposing Ash or killing Eiji or anything of the sort. So he could block the sun in a good sense, too.
In the end of this scene, symbolically, Mr. Helpless Child lands in a fetal position at Blanca’s feet. I know in the manga Blanca catches him. I honestly think it’s fitting he didn’t here, because Blanca is failing to protect Yut-Lung from himself, which is where he really needs the protection, just like Blanca failed Ash. Hence it’s fitting and also sad that Ash is the one throwing Yut-Lung at Blanca’s feet, because the narrative therefore challenges Blanca to do something, but he doesn’t act in time to prevent immediate pain.
Anyways both these boys are walking basket cases and I need someone to give Ash and Yut-Lung a hug and therapy stat. I volunteer.
Yut Lung had really thought Blanca wanted to protect him. That maybe someone finally cared about him. He must’ve felt betrayed that Blanca only entered the contract to help Ash under the guise of protecting Yut Lung.(I do believe Blanca cares though, he’s just known Ash longer)
He just needs someone to love and care for him and help him understand that feeling. I don’t care if everyone hates Yut Lung and is laughing at his downfall, but I will love him. Ash isn’t the only one who deserves better.
Thissss. I really think a lot of what causes Yut-Lung to vow revenge at the end is not that Ash grabbed him and held him hostage and got Eiji released: it’s that the two people he really hoped cared about him (Blanca and Sing) chose to stick with him only to help Ash, and he’s just realized this. His recognition of Sing’s voice in the shootout and then the confrontation with Blanca are really breaking him down, and he doesn’t have the self-awareness to realize that, as Sing told him last episode, it’s his own shady actions that are pushing Sing to help Eiji and Ash. Once again, he’s reminded that Ash has people who care about him, and he does not, and like a child (because he very much acts like a toddler this episode) he lashes out at Ash for having what he does not, but desperately wants.
He fits all my favorite requirements to the point where it’s almost hilarious: long hair, affinity for needles, sad family situation, angry petty murder child, moon association. But in actuality I think he’s an incredibly complex character, an antagonist but not a villain. His foiling with Ash is superb. You can’t hate him if you like Ash, and his desperate desire to have hope, to have someone to love him, is absolutely gut-wrenching–especially as the actions he takes to get those and to lash out at others who have what he does not, actually push what he wants away. As @aspoonofsugar noted to me, in the latest episode, he walks off in the direction of Eiji after his suicidal tendencies were called out by Sing, while telling Sing to leave him alone. He’s so focused on Eiji–what he doesn’t have–that he doesn’t realize what he’s looking for is right there. Fortunately, Sing runs after him.
2) Ash Lynx.
Like, I never love main characters, especially not ones whom everyone else loves. Eren Jaeger is my favorite main character (besides Ash) precisely because even in universe, he’s nothing special and isn’t well liked. Ash has smarts, looks, prowess with a gun and knife, and everyone adores him. And yet, he’s still so flawed and realistic that I can’t help but adore him too. He wears his pain on his sleeve while still trying to appear tough, and watching him learn vulnerability that won’t be used against him with Eiji is absolutely beautiful. It gives me hope.
3) Sing Soo-Ling.
I love him. He’s like the moral compass of the series, which is funny because he’s a 14 year old gang leader. But I love his relationships with Yut-Lung (Yut-Lung has the chance to be a good big brother to Sing, contrasting how his brothers treated him), Cain, Ash, and now Eiji.
4 tied) Shorter Wong.
He was such a good best friend character. He was so loyal, and his death really profoundly changed the series. He might have been a murderer, but he loved the people close to him dearly, and they loved him back, and it’s hard not to see why. His death was incredibly well done.
4 tied) Eiji Okumura.
I love Eiji. He’s not useless at all despite what some people say–he’s someone afraid to live and learning how to via Ash. His love for Ash is beautiful.
4 tied) Max Lobo.
Ash’s surrogate dad and big brother all in one (fitting since he was Griffin’s friend). He’s such a good guy, and he loves Ash so much despite how flawed their relationship was at the beginning. I also hope the anime touches on Jessica and their relationship more as well. His trauma stems from what happened to Griffin, and you can tell he doesn’t want to lose anyone afterwards, but he learns via Ash he can’t force people to do what he wants. Yet he can still love them.
7) Cain Blood.
I really, really like him, even though we haven’t gotten a lot of him in the anime yet. But his relationship with Sing and with Ash strikes me as brotherly as well, and both of them do need a big brother. I really want to see more of him.
Thanks for breaking my heart this week, Banana Fish. I want to overanalyze the early scene between Eiji and Yut-Lung, because it hurt me.
I mean, they’re not actually that different, Yut-Lung, but that’s besides the point. Like, Yut-Lung’s becoming the brothers he hates strongly parallels Ash’s “candy bar” routine at the end of the episode–again proving that to
survive, both of them can become what they hate. The difference is that
Ash is still fighting in some ways and hasn’t resigned himself to that life; it’s a means to an end this episode; for Yut-Lung, he’s resigned to it being his life.
Yut-Lung knows what Sing told him a few episodes ago is true: that he and Ash are the same. But, as he says to Eiji here:
Is Yut-Lung talking to Eiji, or to himself, or both? I’d say both. He’s asking Eiji to stay with him the only way he knows how (being manipulative) but he’s also talking about himself, and Ash. That there’s nowhere they can go to escape this life they were handed. We’ve already seen how well that worked when Ash went to Cape Cod and then LA. And he wants to know from Eiji: is there a place to go?
In Ash’s death, Yut-Lung sees his own. In Ash, as jealous and hateful as he continues to be towards him, he sees someone who still found something beautiful and hopeful (his relationship with Eiji). And it still couldn’t save Ash, and Eiji is walking away from Yut-Lung, so why continue?
When Eiji refuses, Yut-Lung is genuinely upset.
Why do you get to walk away? And why do you get to love someone, and be loved, and not me? That’s what he’s asking. Because both Ash and Yut-Lung see themselves in Eiji, too. They see someone who is scared of living in some ways, but who has the opportunity to do so in ways they do not. And he points to the hypocrisy of Eiji’s statement here:
What does it matter whether they’re resisting or not, if they’re still dead? He’s again making the point that he and Ash are similar in some ways, and that neither of them are really willing to forgive themselves because all their justifications don’t hold up. Yut-Lung’s trying to again make Eiji feel like he doesn’t belong in Ash’s world, while at the same time pressing him to understand him and also Ash.
Yut-Lung is also asking what the difference is between him and Ash. Ash is someone who directly resists. He fights the system he was brought up in no matter what. Yut-Lung doesn’t.
How ironic that Yut-Lung is the one trying to hurt himself here, while hurting Eiji. It’s again the different path Ash takes vs the one Yut-Lung takes: Yut-Lung wants to destroy his enemies and himself with them. Ash has a similar desire, but goes about it in a different way because he also has people he wants to protect.
Enter Sing, who continues to be the most mature character and the moral compass of the series despite being a 14-year-old gangster. He calls Yut-Lung out on his suicidal tendencies, almost like what Eiji has done for Ash on occasion.
But Yut-Lung insists on being left alone. And there’s his answer to why not me: Yut-Lung is still too scared to accept that kind of compassion, to accept that someone can see you at your worst, at your weakest, and still care. Sing is also, unlike Eiji, a person from a violent world too (even if it’s not quite as hopeless as Ash’s and Yut-Lung’s)–but he’s making somewhat better choices.
Fortunately, Sing runs after Yut-Lung.
I don’t see Sing’s relationship with Yut-Lung in the same romantic sense of Ash and Eiji’s (I see them more in a brotherly sense), but there’s clearly hope for Yut-Lung in his relationship with Sing.
Sing tea! (chocolate chai + coconut). The coconut really compliments the chai well, and the sprinkles as accents look cute.
Preface: I haven’t read the manga but I have a general idea of what happens though that doesn’t really factor into this meta.
Thank you for stating the obvious, Sing.
Yut Lung Lee and Ash Lynx are pretty clearly established as foils. Yut Lung is 16, Ash is 17, and both of them are trapped in this system that created their trauma and cages them now, and both paradoxically seem to believe the only freedom is in death while wanting to survive. This quest to survive and to live free reflects itself in their respective relationships with Eiji, as well, as they both tread different paths (currently): Ash is determined to fight until he escapes and makes vital connections with loved ones, whereas Yut Lung closes himself off because he believes there is no hope of escape, so instead he fixates on revenge.
It kind of all comes down to this scene, in which Yut Lung offers Ash a choice that the story seems to be continually offering its characters:
This scene sets up the choices both of these foils are making in that it asks Ash to make a choice in an escape, and explicitly tells him that there is no way out of a literal torture house if he prioritizes revenge. But if he prioritizes saving the people he cares about (Eiji, Max, Ibe, also Shorter’s body), then he can escape. Yut Lung makes the opposite choice, leaving Dino’s house only to return to his brothers, because he is currently prioritizing revenge.
Everything about Yut Lung and Ash appears to be an inverse of the other, from their appearances to their family situations.
Yut Lung comes from a family of power. Ash comes from nothing–a runaway. Yut Lung’s brothers abuse him and pimp him out to creeps, and his mother whom he’s implied to have loved deeply was murdered by these brothers. Ash’s brother raises him, and his biological father abandons him and his adoptive father figure (Dino) abuses him and pimps him out to creeps. Ash is rash, active, rebellious openly; Yut Lung is methodical, outwardly passive, and subtly manipulative. Ash is expected to rise in leadership; Yut Lung is not. Ash just wants to escape but doesn’t believe he can and essentially wants to fight until he dies; Yut Lung wants to burn it all down from the inside, and himself with it.
This manifests itself in their different responses to Eiji as well. Ash repeatedly tries to get Eiji to leave him. Ash wants Eiji to run.
But Yut Lung’s advice to Eiji is to accept it and assimilate.
We also know Yut Lung both resents and covets Eiji–or an Eiji-like figure, someone who can care about him no matter what–which Yut Lung seems to view as a kind of freedom within a cage.
And Yut Lung finds himself giving similar advice to a foil for Eiji (and for himself, and for Ash): Sing. Sing is already a part of the world Yut Lung lives in, and yet Yut Lung tells him he does not want him treading deeper into his world.
But Yut Lung then seems disappointed when Sing acquiesces–leaving precisely to maybe seek revenge on Ash, as Sing tells Yut Lung, instead of staying with him.
Sing in some respects seems to be both an Eiji potential figure to Yut Lung, but also a younger brother, giving Yut Lung the opportunity to be a protective brother figure like his brothers should have been for him, instead of abusing him. However, Yut Lung’s plans to work from the inside to destroy things make me highly skeptical that he isn’t going to slowly find himself becoming more and more like the brothers he hates, especially if he keeps pushing people away and repressing his emotions (more on the repression in a moment).
As for Ash, we’re recently seen him struggling with that choice Yut Lung gave him yet again, and when he veers closer to the revenge aspect as well, the story punishes him for it and points out that he, too, is becoming like the people he hates. Eiji calls him out on it in the most recent episode.
Murdering people begging for mercy is something that the people Ash hates would do. Revenge is something that perpetuates an abusive cycle rather than letting you escape it.
But Ash comes closest to escaping when he’s vulnerable, when he reveals his emotions, specifically with Eiji.
Yut Lung is too focused on revenge to open up to Sing, or to anyone. Ash expresses his emotions in tears such as in the above scene whereas Yut Lung represses. This scene with Shorter is so fascinating (as @aspoonofsugar pointed out to me) because we know from Yut Lung’s monologue that he agrees about the older Lee clan.
But Yut Lung can’t say what he feels. Shorter is the one who cries, but his tears fall on Yut Lung’s face. Yut Lung relies on others to do the emotional work, whereas Ash usually expresses his emotions even if not in the best of ways.
Continuing along these lines, if we return to the scene wherein Sing tells Yut Lung he hates Ash because he is just like Ash, we see again that Yut Lung both hates Ash for being able to express the emotions he cannot, and also envies him.
Like Eiji with Ash on his murder gang war spree, Sing calls Yut Lung out on being what he doesn’t want to be. Yut Lung wants to be close to people, and it’s that want that gives me hope for him.
Ash’s ability to express his emotions connects him with people, and he wears his heart for the people he cares about on his sleeve, perhaps a bit unwisely even at times as it’s a weakness everyone notes.
But the tragic irony of the situation is that while Ash is desperate to protect his friends, he’s not to protect himself. He repeatedly puts himself in danger for the sake of helping his loved ones and for revenge as well. That’s another trait Ash and Yut Lung share: neither of them appear to believe they deserve to live.
They hate themselves, probably as a result of the way they are repeatedly abused and commodified by their abusers. Like, these scenes are clear parallels in that they occur in adjacent episodes. Both are forced to dress up to please Dino’s sick desires.
Ash heads down this path with Banana Fish out of a desire to find out what happened to his brother and a desire to stick it to Golzine, but the people around him routinely complicate this and ask him to deviate to save them, but in saving them Ash has the opportunity to save himself. However, he’s yet to fully realize what it offers. The ability to love people matters, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Yut Lung have to make a similar choice at some point if he actually develops care for someone.
Both of them are afraid to live, because they aren’t sure they deserve to. And if Ash and Yut Lung are afraid to live, so is Eiji. But unlike the former two, Eiji has the chance to live free. Ash, because he connects with Eiji, admires this.
Yut Lung, who refuses to open up to anyone, appears to resent it.
The thing is, regardless of their choices, their loved ones will always be in danger if they dare to have them. Eiji is kind of like a symbolic light in that he knows the danger of caring for Ash and for the others around him, but he chooses to do this anyways, and in doing so, in taking that risk, he is ironically freer than he was before. Sing, though his character has not been fully delved into just yet, also seems to care deeply for people (like Shorter) despite knowing the risks.
Because of their trauma, we know why Ash is terrified of keeping Eiji close, and why Yut Lung refuses to allow anyone close. But if they want to ever break free, they’ll have to figure out how to take this risk and in doing so, they won’t be able to pursue revenge anymore since the story couldn’t be clearer that the two choices do not go hand in hand. Yet their struggle to do so is again so sympathetic and so understandable, because they are both traumatized children, and it’s heartbreaking and highlights the horror and lifelong effects sexual abuse can have. which is, given current events in the US, perhaps a message certain politicians should hear
So uh. When I found there were no Banana Fish teas on Adagio, I kind of created my own. Feat Ash, Eiji, Shorter, Sing, and Yut-Lung!
yes, yes i did give yut-lung the tea with moon in its name and eiji vanilla and cream like the angel he is and sing chocolate accented with sprinkles because it’s what he deserves
hamliet 