The Fable: The Second Contact

The story is set about one year after the ending to The Fable. Akira and Youko are forced to abort their latest mission due to the Covid-19 pandemic and return to Osaka to continue their quiet life as regular civilians, but the peace is not to last.

(Source: MU)

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The Fable: The Second Contact was published digitally as an English simulpub through K Manga.

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Satou, Akira

Main

Satou, Youko

Supporting

Ebihara, Takeshi

Supporting

Kuroshio, Ryou

Supporting

Shimizu, Misaki

Supporting

Yuukari, Shinobu

Supporting

Reviews

Jan 7, 2025

bergars

Recommended

From perfect to good.

I won't deny, and I don't think anybody can deny, this sequel wasn't entirely necessary. The original was a work of art, a true look into the beginning of redemption, and it did change my outlook into “do killers deserve a happy ending?”. Some other stories constantly contradict the happy idea the original “The Fable” discussed, and I expected this one to challenge that notion. Instead, it's just… more Fable. While the first one works great on its own, you can easily remove this one from the timeline, and there's not much of a change.

Does that make this one bad? ... Not particularly. On its own, Second Contact is about how there's new trouble, stemming from old demons left untouched. There's the action, the comedy, the writing, the atmosphere, all while in the middle of… COVID-19? Wow, yeah, that's legitimately unexpected. It affects the narrative heavily, and explores how the Yakuza is affected by a pandemic, and the killers live in this environment, not only with the narrative happening, but as a background element.

There's something about this mangaka, and his way of delivering lines, and the world around the character's that's so ALIVE. So dumb, yet, so human and relatable. We're talking about a story about super assassins finding a purpose in small-time jobs. Somehow, the comedy bits feel like a warm hug by those friendships you love. More of the same from before, without too many stakes to speak about, at least for the MC, Akira.

The story shifts from the big, and powerful Akira, into challenging the other assassins, and showing if people with a little less skill, can actually follow up the lesson from the first installment.

“Do Not Kill For Any Reason”. However, for as much of a challenge as there was for them, only the last chapters really showed that. It was rushed, no other way to put it. The original had so much time to develop each character to their utmost mentality. Every philosophy, displayed to us the audience, the look into a demented bastard who can't feel fear, or the ex-con who's trying to make it big, or the rapist creep. Each villain had enough time to exist, but these villains are just a gang of demented rapists, all of them. The story did feel like shock for shock's sake at some points, with them CONSTANTLY wanting to rape a certain character. I wish that wasn't the only way to make somebody hateable, since it just becomes “oh, got it, another rapist”, and you kinda shut your brain off whenever they're on-screen.

No depth to the villains, except one or two, too short to justify these villains being there. The writing isn't as sharp and interesting. The lesson isn't challenged and reinforced properly, just reinforced. Rape isn't the only way to add stakes to a situation, Jesus Christ.

7/10. More of Fable, and while it's pretty good, the failures from the ending, and the villains, and the theme, do put it lower on ratings. You should still experience it, since more Fable, is always great.

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Dec 1, 2022

CactusWren

Mixed Feelings

Informative

Preliminary (27/86 eps)

Spoiler

The good thing about The Second Contact is that it captures the same absurdist humor as the previous manga. It's great to see the same beloved characters again and expound on more hilarious scenarios with them. The introduction into the 2nd series feels weak but is still in line with the flavor of The Fable and throws the readers directly into the Covid society setting.

Minor Spoilers below:

My only gripe with this follow up is that it seems to retcon the finale of the prequel and is taking the plot in a different direction. The previous storyline was about the humanization of the main character ...

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Nov 24, 2024

typewritermonkey

Not Recommended

Funny

The first [The Fable] manga went on far longer than it should have; this sequel should have never materialized. The author, Katsuhisa, was already prone to using his characters as mouthpieces to rant about his political opinions. Giving him a sequel as a platform to rant about COVID-19, and Japan's response to it, made him insufferable. So many of the early chapters revolve around COVID's impact, and people opining about it, that he even lampshades it by making one of his characters tell another to shut up about COVID. It didn't even matter, because once he got it out of his system, COVID was forgotten ... in-universe.

The longer the original prequel went, the more of a one-man-army Akira became, the more Youko jobbed, and the more fantastical the plot became. Second Contract fixes none of these issues and gives you whiplash by suddenly accelerating in this same direction after making a big deal of having the characters retire for good at the end of part one. So it's a one last job angle, for realsies this time. Promise. Problem is, there's only so many ways you can draw Akira going super saiyan with a flurry of strikes, while maintaining a veil of realism. If you're going to drag Akira out of retirement, give him a challenge he can't solve with his fists. But nope, it's nothing you haven't seen before. Youko's treatment is worse. Not only does her character get used as hostage fodder once again, while still insisting she's high up on the power ranking, she also bares it all in a gratuitous full page nude spread to show the man she falls for how serious she is. Like come on, it was so out of place. And lastly, by the end of Second Contract, mind control was literally fair game (which isn't a spoiler btw). Enough said.

What made the early chapters of the first Fable stand out, was how grounded it was. It could be interesting without action, with just some low level yakuza intrigues and creeps. Action that did occur was limited and small-scale enough for the little mind games to be appreciated. It was low-stakes, funny, and different. The realistic facial shading was unique (even more so in the first few chapters) and paired well with the plot.

Somewhere around the wheelchair girl arc though, things changed. Higher level conflict became normalized. It went from mano a mano, to team versus team, and eventually entire clan versus clan, fighting small wars. The point of a retired assassin premise is that it's more interesting than a regular assassin story, so rule one should be: don't escalate it back into one! But a sequel will as a sequel does, and turned it into something fantastical and formulaic like Die Hard, just begging for more live action adaptations.

Second Contract's 80 chapters is one giant conflict between Akira's group and a rival assassin org. The extended arcs of Part One were bad enough, but a whole sequel spent on build up and hyping up one villain when you can guess who's going to come out on top takes the cake. It's just not worth sidelining the prequel characters and giving up the more episodic nature, if you're not going to change things up for the better. Even the gags get recycled and predictable. For authors with limited repetoires, less is more. In an ideal world, The Fable ends before 100 chapters.

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