“So I take it you were telling the truth when you said you wanted to be a baseball player.”
“Well, yeah,” Banba smiled bitterly. “It was an occupation I admired.”
It was a dream for any baseball boy to have. However, in Banba’s case it was not just a dream.
“I really put the effort to make it happen. I practiced in the club teams since I was in elementary and even got in the baseball club in high school. I thought someday I could get into the draft team or an independent league and be an active member of society that way.”
“Really?” Lin lifted his head curiously when Banba spoke of his past – a rare occurrence. “So why did a high school baseball kid like you, aiming to become a professional, become a hitman instead?”
Banba chuckled.
“Who knows.” He cocked his head and replied back ambiguously. “How did that happen?”
“……Ha?” Banba was at a loss of words at her unexpected request. “No, sorry. I can’t do that.”
However, Misaki would not back down. “It’s fine. Teach me. I want to become a killer too. So please. Even one week of it will do.”
“Are you stupid? That’s not something you can pick up.” Lin frowned. “Are you making light of hitmen?”
“I’m not.”
“Misaki,” Banba said to admonish her. “A hitman ain’t something you become by wanting to be. People become killers because that’s the only thing they can become.”
I didn’t sign up for this when I took on the anime and then the novels for this series. T_T
Yeah, Banba keeps his past hidden for quite a while. In the LN timeline, Lin doesn’t get to know for 11 months since the series began. He got to hear a little bit of what happened with Sayuri about 9 months after meeting Banba in the LN timeline, and even then Banba didn’t explain everything. This does frustrate Lin and it will be brought up again as a key conflict in another arc before we actually get to Banba’s arc.
@kaedesan721 hm! Yeah I remember your summaries of the different volumes. 🙂 It’s amazing how it’s been at the core of the dynamic though: first in novel 3 which led to Lin almost leaving out of fear of being betrayed once again, but otherwise there are mentions of it here and there and then I guess it’s going to be really addressed in novel 6 by Lin.
More than that, I love all the little subtleties about it: in just the 2 parts I quoted, you can at least understand that something terrible enough happened that Banba was forced to leave his dreams behind and become a killer instead. It totally contrasts with how nice he constantly is too, so I guess that’s why it really makes one curious about it. 🙂
Alright, so.
We know that Lin isn’t as pro as the some killers. But, based on his bank account, he gets paid 9430 USD for killing that club worker. Let’s say there was personal grudge there and knock his average assassination pay to 9000.
Now, the Niwaka Samurai is gonna get paid a lot more to kill hitmen, but for easy maths, we’ll say he gets 10,000 USD.
In the scene where he saves Lin, there is anywhere from 11 to 9 people, (approx. 10) that Banba slays.
10×10,000=100,000 to clear that level.
(That’s charging the people like average customers, not Mob bosses and pro assassins like they are.)
Spicy pollock roe also called Mentaiko costs anywhere between $4.60-$14.97 but averages about 12 USD.
A lifetime supply is defined as “1 item per week for X amount of years”, but let’s over- estimate and say that Banba wants 1 spicy pollock roe a day for 5 years.
There are 365 days in a year, multiplied by 5 years, resulting in 1825 total days.
$12 (average price) × 1825 days = $21, 900 USD. Converted to yen for shits and giggles is 2,228,068.58.
Banba should have charged around 10,609,650.00 yen to empty out that warehouse.
Which means Lin got a discount of 8,381,581.42 or roughly 78,954.50 USD.
Which means he got the family, friends, and LOVERS discount. Which means they’re totally married.
#Change my mind.
Keep in mind that apparently Lin got Banba to install a bath. I have no idea how much that costs but you can add that to the tab.
For what it’s worth for the 20 people who care. And this isn’t going to be a long post because I have no talent with that, and also I don’t want to hang myself with too long a rope because obviously I’m not that familiar with the source material.
Lin has trust issues (duh, also water is wet). He doesn’t trust anyone, he especially doesn’t trust anyone who does things which are nice for him. Whether that be compliments, or gifts, or anything like that. You see that a bit in the first arc when Banba was offering to help Lin.
Lin doesn’t really want to be indebted to others due to his trust issues, (although secretly he does crave affection and attention but that’s a whole other story). Anyways Lin dosen’t want to be indebted to anyone, but Banba has sneaked his way into doing just that for him, and Lin’s not quite sure how to handle that.
I think Banba completely understands Lin’s insecurity and trust issues, because I always got the sense that for all Banba’s ‘I’m this big dork’ thing, which isn’t entirely an act because yeah he is a dork…but I digress, for all that he does the dorky thing Banba is really good at reading other people. He knows that Lin is uncomfortable with the help he’s offered, he knows that Lin doesn’t deal well with compliments – so Banba always couches his niceness and regard for Lin with jokes, and backhanded compliments etc. I don’t think Banba’s bickering with Lin, (at least some of it) is as casual as you think, I think Banba is really calculated in making sure he doesn’t push too hard to freak Lin out. To push Lin so far that he’d run.
That’s my thoughts. I think Banba might have issues (upon which I can’t even begin to speculate because I don’t know), but that despite that, or maybe because of it, he’s also got a fair amount of emotional intelligence, which he uses quite effectively with Lin (okay maybe not so much with baseball, but you know what I mean).
Anyway, if I’m right in my assessment, I think that shows how incredibly nice Banba is. And I’m pretty glad Lin managed to stumble across Banba when he was most vulnerable with his sister’s death, because I’m sure that there are a lot of people in that business who would have fucked up Lin well and truly.
midnight-in-town 