English Dub Season Review: The Fable Season One

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The legendary hitman, Fable (Jonah Scott), takes a cool, comical, slightly eccentric one-year hiatus from killing.

Our Take:

The Fable is an anime adaptation of a manga series written and illustrated by Katsuhisa Minami.  It is directed by Ryōsuke Takahashi and Daisuke Nakajima, with Takahashi being known for his works in the real robot genre, including Armored Trooper VOTOMS, Fang of the Sun Dougram, Panzer World Galient, and Blue Comet SPT Layzner.  The scripts were supervised by Yūya Takashima and co-written by Mayumi Morita.  It is animated by Tezuka Productions, which is known for producing other shows like Astro Boy, Black Jack, The Quintessential Quintuplets, and Under Ninja.  The character designs were handled by Kyuma Oshita, Saki Hasegawa, and Junichi Hayama, while Shuichiro Fukuhiro composed the music.  The opening theme songs were “Professionalism feat. Hannya” by ALI and “Switch” performed by Umeda Cypher.  The ending theme songs were “Odd Numbers” by Umeda Cypher and “Beyond feat. Mari” by ALI. 

Well, I’ve been watching one show involving a retired assassin refraining from killing.  What’s stopping me from watching another?  After its 25-episode run in Japan last year, The Fable has finally received an English dub adaptation for those not in the mood to read the subtitles.  This is another anime that didn’t grab my full attention until I was tasked with covering it.  Additionally, reading its synopsis reminded me of my current experience with Sakamoto Days, which recently concluded its first half.  But does it also make this type of retirement entertaining?  Mostly, yes, but it didn’t maintain my interest long enough to make this latest addition to the retiring assassin catalog worthwhile.

The first season of The Fable chronicles “Fable”, a professional assassin who’s dense yet highly skilled, making him a legend in the Japanese underworld.  He and his female assistant/driver (Miya Kodama) spent six years accomplishing assignments for their boss (Steve Blum).  However, due to the lack of work available, Fable and his partner are tasked with the most dangerous mission of their lives: a one-year retirement.  Posing as ordinary siblings Akira and Yoko Sato, the two are ordered to lay low in a reclusive hideout provided by the Maguro clan in Osaka, refraining from harming or killing anyone in the city.  Unfortunately, given Fable’s uncontrollable habits of causing trouble and the city’s scumbags, this “simple” mission of living an ordinary life becomes an even greater challenge for the unstoppable hitman.

In a way, The Fable functions as a low-level version of Sakamoto Days.  Both shows feature the same concept of professional assassins foregoing their brutal personas in favor of living normal lives as law-abiding citizens.  However, the only obstacles keeping them from retiring are the other criminals targeting them and their violent urges.  Since The Fable was released a year before Sakamoto Days, the former seems to inspire Sakamoto Days.  Because of this, the latter would’ve been written off as a rip-off of this series.  Fortunately, The Fable provided a few differences in its plot to differentiate it from Sakamoto Days, including its tone.  Despite the mature rating, Sakamoto Days is described as a light-hearted action comedy that balances its brutal and stylized violence with a humorous twist on its John Wick-inspired concept.  In contrast, The Fable takes a more down-to-earth approach to its plot, in which the titular assassin takes a year off from killing instead of having a permanent retirement like Sakamoto.  It does have moments of comedy that coincide with its bleak tone, including Fable’s ignorance and bizarre sense of humor due to his love of television comedian Jackal Tomioka (Daniel Ross).  But they’re not portrayed in a way that overshadows the show’s intended quality.

Regarding its presentation and Fable’s obstacles, The Fable certainly has a few differences to prevent it from classifying Sakamoto Days as its copy-and-paste clone.  But, of course, it’s also a matter of whether these fish-out-of-water elements have any merits to make it worth a watch, which they mostly do.  It may not be as action-packed or fast-paced as Sakamoto Days, but I will admit that this show had enough hits to keep viewers occupied until the second half of Sakamoto Days arrives in July.  The show’s narrative mainly consists of Fable’s attempts to pose as an ordinary citizen, including his working as a delivery driver and his wilderness trip with Ryo Kuroshio (Adam McArthur), a Maguro clan member who admires Fable.  At the same time, he attempts to keep his cover hidden while confronting a few adversaries.  One of them is Kenji Kojima (SungWon Cho), the clan’s middle-ranking member released from prison with a mischievous motive involving forming a call girl business in Shuichi Sunagawa’s (Doug Stone) territory.  In the season’s second half, Fable faces Rei Utsubo (Keith Silverstein), a man from his past who uses the Taihei Detective Agency as a cover to commit heinous crimes.  Regarding the history between the two and the man’s devious intentions, Utsubo proved to be a more interesting foe compared to Kojima.

With the season being 25 episodes long, the series had plenty to work with to maintain my interest in its concept, mainly with its pacing.  It’s not without its amusing moments involving Fable’s ignorance and the action, which is enough to get me mostly attached to its narrative.  However, the concept’s appeal ran out of steam a bit faster than I expected.  Since the show is more dialogue-driven than anticipated, it ran the risk of being drawn out in its expeditions and jokes during some of its episodes.  One example of the latter is Yoko toying with other men’s emotions with her strategic knowledge, especially in its eighth episode, “Because I’m… You know!”, where she toys with a man named Yuki Kawai (Andrew Frankel).  That particular sequence was humorous enough to emphasize Yoko’s sane yet manipulative and alcoholic personality, but it also wore itself thin by prolonging it longer than it should.  She repeated the same process to Yuki in “Mountaineer Man”, which wound up being more repetitive and pointless than the first time it happened.  Despite having a more interesting arc in the season’s final episodes, its plot didn’t take advantage of the fish-out-of-water elements much to elevate its dragged-out premise and perversive humor, mainly from Etsuji Kainuma (Michael Sinterniklaas) and his unhealthy obsession with Misaki Shimizu (Felecia Angelle).

Tezuka Productions has its share of successful projects that made the company worthy of producing The Fable, with its most notable works being Astro Boy and The Quintessential Quintuplets.  While I haven’t seen any of the company’s projects, I was hoping it would provide something unique in its gritty stylization and violence in this show.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be the case when compared to the other well-received action anime, but that doesn’t mean its presentation is an eyesore.  While the action sequences struggled to capitalize on its style regarding the stiff movements and underwhelming suspense, the animation mostly compensated with its mildly detailed character designs, color shading, and tolerable visual gags.  I was also impressed with how the animation conveyed the smooth character movements during specific moments, notably Kainuma exploring Misaki’s apartment in “Prison Release Jamboree”.

Regarding shows involving retired assassins, The Fable doesn’t quite have the edge I was hoping for, especially when compared to Sakamoto Days.  However, that could be my fault for expecting something similar to that anime on Netflix.  Fortunately for me, it had a few redeeming qualities in its presentation, voice cast, and final episodes to make a serviceable yet flawed killing in the “Retiring Assassin anime” department.  While its narrative aspects and middling humor dragged the show out a bit too long, making its concept overstay its welcome, the series is fine enough to act as comfort anime food you could turn on as background noise.  If you liked the manga it’s based on, you may enjoy its adaptation.  Otherwise, I’d rather wait for the second half of Sakamoto Days instead.