Attack on Titan and Banana Fish fandoms created a star in Ricky Montgomery

28.08.2023 - 14:01 / polygon.com

If you also chronically scroll through TikTok, and you’re an anime fan, then you likely know of musician Ricky Montgomery. His songs have commanded enormous audiences, and clips from “Mr. Loverman” and “Line Without a Hook” have been used and reused for trends. TikTok has launched numerous musicians into stardom, and Montgomery took off during the COVID-19 pandemic, around the same time anime and manga fandom intensified online. At the time of publication, his music has surpassed 1 billion streams globally, and he has two platinum records.

His success is uniquely a product of TikTokers’ anime obsession, a fandom his music has become “fully enmeshed” with, Montgomery told Polygon. It’s a blessing and a curse that has buoyed his music career. Montgomery’s music has become the soundtrack for anime fan edits and memes of Banana Fish, Attack on Titan, Jujutsu Kaisen, and more. The same force that brought viral success to the indie-pop artist is also responsible for connecting Montgomery’s music to videos where people paint their feet to look like characters.

Prior to his current success, Montgomery dipped in and out of the music scene for several years. Montgomery released the now-popular album “Montgomery Ricky” in 2016, but left the music industry for a career in marketing. After returning to music and a canceled tour due to the pandemic, he once again considered leaving music — but the internet held on to him. Or, at least, a bunch of anime fans obsessed with Banana Fish did.

In 2020, Montgomery noticed his music was being streamed more and more on Spotify and TikTok. Fans of Banana Fish — an anime series following the friendship of a photographer and a gang member that ends in tragedy — had started to create fan edits overlaid with Montgomery’s lyrics, and posted clips or lighthearted memes of the show with his song “Mr. Loverman” as the accompanying audio.

“I remember the first TikTok I ever made that got a million views was just this TikTok of me saying that I was going to watch Banana Fish and it went… bananas! Come on. [...] And so from there I went, Oh, whoa, this is fertile ground.”

#stitch with @rickymontgomery just finished banana fish :( part 2 i guess

Montgomery’s fame only grew as he engaged with fans on TikTok. Silly videos of Montgomery reacting to fan videos garnered hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of views. Shortly afterward, Banana Fish fans claimed a second song, “Line Without a Hook,” and Montgomery soon had two songs going viral at once. Both “Mr. Loverman” and “Line Without a Hook” went platinum, and Montgomery was signed to Warner Records.

Now, Montgomery’s music has become inextricably linked with anime. He credits getting his record deal to anime fandom. Fans will