The Fable

Fable, an assassin who works in organized crime, has been raised to the legendary status of a ruthless killer capable of murdering any man within six seconds. Six years after his debut, his boss fears that Fable has started to attract too much attention from the legal authorities, and he orders him to hide in Osaka for a year. Accompanied by his driver who assumes the identity of his sister, Fable is bound by a special condition: he must act as a civilian and not murder anyone lest he and his partner lose their lives.

However, the seemingly well-deserved holiday soon takes a grim turn. Takeshi Ebihara, the second-in-command of the Osaka mafia that officially protects the assassin, sees Fable's presence as a threat and wants to remove him. Constantly monitored by the yakuza and regularly put in life-or-death situations, Fable has no other choice but to outwit Takeshi's schemes if he wants to stay alive.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Satou, Akira Main

Okitsu, Kazuyuki Japanese

Satou, Youko Supporting

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Ebihara, Takeshi Supporting

Ootsuka, Akio Japanese

Jackal Tomioka Supporting

Fukushima, Jun Japanese

Shimizu, Misaki Supporting

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Kuroshio, Ryou Supporting

Iwasaki, Ryouta Japanese

Matsu Supporting

Mizuuchi, Kiyomitsu Japanese

Boss Supporting

Komura, Tetsuo Japanese

Utsubo, Rei Supporting

Fuji, Shinshuu Japanese

Saba, Hinako Supporting

Anzai, Chika Japanese

Iwasa, Naoki Producer

Udagawa, Sumio Producer

Yoshio, Souta Producer

Onoue, Taiki Producer

Reviews

Jan 30, 2025

Deverant

Recommended

Fable is one of the greats in adult animation. Every episode is of consistent quality and there's a perfect balance over the season between plot/dialogue and the action youd expect from a story about a hired killer. Its also very funny which I wasnt expecting and the humor reads as a bit western to me (not really like a gag manga or trope-y).

I really wanna emphasize what I mean by adult animation because yes the tag is "Seinen" but not all Seinen meet this level of quality. The show takes its time with things and handles them with finesse: basically every character youre introduced ... to no matter how small they seem is really built out well. They have reasons for existing for how they impact the plot and other characters' development, they aren't just caricatures.

The effect this has on the anime/manga is ofc to slow it down a bit relative to what youd get in shounen, so I can understand if people found it exposition heavy or just wanted more fighting, but it also means that the action scenes we do get are just incredible. Its quality over quantity, with most action scenes lasting a relatively short period of time but showing off diverse skills from the characters and really getting the viewer thinking about how everything will play out. One standout scene has two "side" characters duking it out over only 5 seconds canonically (more like a few minutes in show time) and yet its one of the most memorable of the whole season.

I honestly find it hard to fault the show but I'm giving it a 9 because I can imagine a world where the animation had a higher budget, even still the unique art style gives it a certain charm that I'll miss. If you're on the fence about this show because the theme isnt what youd normally like but you appreciate other Seinen, I definitely think you should give it a go. Stick through the episodes where it seems mundane and trust the writer to lead you somewhere awesome.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Feb 15, 2025

CaptainKenshiro

Mixed Feelings

This anime is an odd one as it is worth a one-time watch for combining multiple different genres, but not exactly because the combination of them is all that great, nor because each one of them is handled all that well individually either.

First, it is a comedy, with most jokes revolving around how the protagonist is unable to adapt to a common everyday life, and some minor ones about his non-sister trolling men. The first type suffers from no other character reacting to the situation in a way that comes off as funny, but rather having some “ah, I see” with a straight face type ... of reactions.

It is refreshing to have an anime which humor doesn’t revolve around characters yelling and exaggerating over the most minor things, but unless you are a fan of deadpan comedy, I don’t think these would work on you. Comedy rarely makes me laugh, and when the jokes and delivery themselves don’t even feel like trying to make me to, what can I consider them other than mediocre?

The second type comes off as very silly and dragged on to work on me, although I will admit that I found the battle of flirts between the non-sister and that one guy somewhat amusing, and even got a chuckle out of me.

The Fable is also a slice of life type of series but the premise itself prevents it from being a properly made common life type of story, how can you have a slice of life when that life is fabricated, out of the ordinary stuff keeps happening in it, and the main character doesn’t quite nail it? It is certainly an uncommon type of series for the genre that might work for people that are not usually pleased with it, but I don’t see how fans of it would fancy this one much.

The series is also a thriller, and for the most part it succeeds at presenting the most intense circumstances with suspense, as they involve normal people on risky situations with some rather high stakes. The problem is that the show is also a rule of cool action type of one, and that clashes with the other intentions, as most problems are resolved thanks to the protagonist being awesome.

That’s its main issue as a rule of cool type of action series as well. Every properly made work of that subgenre that I’ve seen on anime or live action succeeds primarily thanks to at least one of three main factors: creativity, great spectacle and antagonists that are close to the protagonists in levels of challenge and cool factor. None of these are all that present in the Fable, or at least not with that much success.

The situations the main characters have to deal with are presented in ways meant to be cool, but are also more like thrilling than anything else, while also rather typical for its genre and approached on a pretended semi-realistic way, thus their creativity is rather low.

The spectacle is easily the weakest aspect in this anime thanks to rather mediocre production values. The directing itself is fine, especially when it comes to saving the action scenes with their so-so animation, but the visuals themselves leave a lot to be desired for a work like this. I can give a compliment to the anime for looking actually dark when it is supposed to, which is a rare thing nowadays, but the artwork is simplistic, the character designs simple and their figures go off model often, the backgrounds rather unimpressive, the animation mostly static and with so-so motions on action scenes as previously mentioned, and the special effects aren’t all that good either, and they even feature some rather mediocre CGI.

The audio on the other hand is fine. I don’t like a single song among the two openings and endings of this anime, but the background music itself isn’t bad. The sound effects do their job fine and the voice acting is ok.

Like I hinted at previously, nothing so far poses that much of a challenge to the protagonist. There are a bunch of antagonists and secondary characters with their own agency and schemes, and several opponents on each arc, in turn completely outclassed by the ones of the following arcs, making you think that maybe now the main guy will face a proper threat, but no. When the climax of an arc comes, the protagonist resolves everything by being super awesome and far superior to anyone else around him.

What the anime ends up working most as ends up being the drama, surprisingly, as there are several really serious and mostly real and plausible situations in it, suffered mostly by women, and the series never tries to mix in some comedy in during those moments.

In a general sense, the writing takes its time at presenting the different characters and scenarios and properly excusing grouping them all together. Although rather slow paced and frankly boring to watch in my opinion, once you finish each arc you come to appreciate a proper structure of a well-established build up followed by a far better payoff, making a rather decent whole.

Another good aspect is having several characters with their own agency trying to outclass each other, despite everything being resolved by the super awesome protagonist, as well as enough downtime to present the mentality of all of them. There are several scenes where the cast discuss their ideas about the values of lives and deaths, types of people, different eras with different values and ways to act, working attitudes changing over time and generations, and more stuff.

I won’t say it’s amazing or anything, especially because I watched About the Movements of the Earth after this anime, but it is the most depth and substance and look into the cast that you will find it, so I think that’s worth the mention, despite how weird and twisted some of their ideologies might be. The weakest aspect of the story is of course feeling like mini arcs with no connection with one another, and the lack of an overall ending.

As far as characterization goes, it is easy to dismiss it as being divided between typical good people, mostly women, and typical assholes gagsters and assassins, mostly men, but on a closer inspection, not all yakuzas nor all gangsters are straight up bad, and not all common people are exactly good. In fact an everyday guy is the worst of them all, because at least the criminals themselves recognized that they are scum, while that one dude acts in denial and victimization.

What’s to appreciate is how every relevant character has their backdrop story explored, and although I can’t really say that there’s development, the resolutions feel satisfactory in how everyone gets what they deserve. The good guys get some proper peace and a renewed chance at life at the end in a cathartic way, and the wrongdoers get what’s coming to them, not in a sadistic “haha take that asshole” way for the pleasure of the audience, but rather through outcomes that feel bittersweet.

In the middle of all of that is the protagonist, who is the only one getting some slight change by becoming more humanized thanks to his newfound everyday life and companions. Too bad he is really serious and dry and rather boring to follow from beginning to end for me to consider him developed or interesting. Honestly is it mostly the same with everyone else, but least they are proactive, while he is mostly reactive and uninterested by mostly everything.

Like I said, I wouldn’t say this anime is exactly great, and I certainly didn’t enjoy it, and it has issues both on each one of its genres and as a whole in my opinion, but the combination of all of them and its odd approach to them, with some quality content and satisfactory conclusions here and there, make it a worthy one time watch for me, especially if you are looking for something somewhat different and retro feeling.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jun 12, 2024

prodinuyasha

Not Recommended

Funny

Preliminary (9/25 eps)

I will start by saying I haven’t touched the manga so my review will be based solely on the anime.

The premise of the show seems really cool, a hitman that has to try to live a normal life with his fake "sister" for a year. The setup was done and explained nicely in the first episode and I genuinely enjoyed it. But it goes downhill from there.

The cast of characters is really bland, they don’t bring much to the table bar the main character which reminds me in a lot of ways of Kazuma Kiryu from the Yakuza games. The pace of the show is ... way too static and sluggish to forget how boring the characters are even if I tried to forget about that aspect and try to enjoy this anime.

After completing 9 episodes it feels like the story didn’t progress much, 5 minutes of action get interrupted with 10 of a very dry and slow dialogue that kills all the momentum of the show.

I don’t have a problem with slower paced animes, but this one seems like a wasted potential since I really like the general idea of the show.

The animation is… like the rest of the show, average. But then again, it’s hard to let the animation shine when most of the screentime is taken by very static dialogue scenes.

Would I recommend it? As of now, it’s a waste of time and for a 24 episode show not to pick up until the half of it (if it even picks up at that point) you have to ask yourself if it’s really worth your time.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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