Thugs are dropping like flies in the dark, dank hallways of a sketchy apartment block. The cause? The Fable—a legendary professional hitman who has taken out 71 big fish over the past six years. Every profession has its geniuses, and he’s the genius of underworld assassination. In fact, he may be just a little too good at his job: Boss is getting worried about his greatest asset’s rising profile and orders Fable to take a year off…in Osaka. There are only 20 yakuza in the entire region. Can’t get more off-grid than that, right? Fable is given a new name—Akira Sato—and a younger sister, Yoko, in the form of his assistant and driver for the past year (previously known as GPS-woman), who will accompany him into hiding. One more thing: if anyone winds up dead in Fable’s vicinity, Boss will kill both of the “Sato siblings”. He’s serious about their keeping under the radar. And so, after leaving (most of) his guns in the microwave and stowing 50 million in cash in grocery bags in the car trunk, the newly minted brother and sister head West, practicing their Kansai dialect. What will Osaka hold for them? And can they keep from killing? It remains to be seen.
I said “it remains to be seen,” but that’s assuming that the lighting in this episode brightens up enough for viewers to actually be able to see what is going on in future episodes. I get wanting to go for the noir vibe—something underlined by the jazzy soundtrack and tendency to set all the action at night—but at least drop a few streetlights or glowing smartphone screens in there, Tezuka Productions! I was squinting my way through this one. I expected to also be laughing, or at least chuckling my way through it too, but sadly Fable’s monotone delivery effectively drained the humor from the jokes. The premise is a lot funnier than the execution so far. This is partly because the characters themselves are pretty flat. There’s an attempt to give the “siblings” an appropriately zingy banter dynamic, but it doesn’t really take. At least there’s no threat of pseudo-incest here though, as the two have absolutely zero chemistry. And, well, that’s about it. Nothing particularly egregious, but nothing to hook me for a second episode either. Only the fact that I subscribed to Disney+ for a month to watch the anime premieres will give this series a fighting chance at getting me to sit down in front of it again—after all, I gotta get my money’s worth. Not all of us are professional hitmen with bags full of cash.
The Fable is streaming on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in Europe & the UK.
Claire is a cultural historian by day and anime enthusiast by night. She grew up watching anime without knowing it, misspent her youth studiously avoiding it, and finally came to her senses a few years ago and embraced it. Mostly because of Boogiepop, Kensuke Ushio and Naoko Yamada.
