The Fable: The Second Contact

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If you're a fan of The Fable Part 1, this is a must-read. It seamlessly picks up the story and reunites all the amazing characters from the first part. Personally, I consider Part 1 a masterpiece, unmatched in its medium. I was thrilled to discover that Part 2 was nearly complete when I began reading it.

The Second Contact offers more of the same charm, which is not a bad thing at all. The gang reunites at the start, diving into hilarious encounters through their new rent-an-uncle endeavor. Additionally, some plot points from Part 1 that were only hinted at are explored further, which is a ... nice touch.

The main plot of The Second Contact is engaging, and the dynamic between Sato and the "villain" is very interesting. While it may not be my favorite arc in The Fable, fans will definitely enjoy it, as I did.

My only gripe is that the characters, especially Sato, are already well-developed from Part 1. I love Sato, but his progression was a major plot point in Part 1, where he learned to socialize and discover new facets of himself. This time around, there's less character development, which might disappoint those who were looking forward to more growth. However, it didn’t diminish my overall enjoyment.

Overall, please read this if you are a Fable fan, you will not be disappointed!!

"The Fable: The Second Contact" left me with so many mixed feelings that I just had to get this review out of my system. Do I recommend you to read this? If you are thinking about reading this, it means you've already finished the masterpiece that is "The Fable", and if you're looking for something more, then yes this manga will scratch that itch. But before going in, you should severly temper your expectations.

Sequels are hard, because no matter what it will be compared to the previous work. And while isolated this manga could be rated as "Fine" or even "Good", compared to its predecessor ... it falls flat in all areas. First off, the story fails to deliver with only 86 chapters, which should be enough for any slow burn to happen, if we look at similarly paced arcs from the first one. Yet the story feels rushed and forced and the episodic slice of life moments feel like a jarring distraction from the main plot. Even if they weren't blended into the main story as well this time around, they were still hilarious when they did happen. But arguably my main point of dissapointment comes from the villains.

They completly sucked. Again, the villains from the first one were so memorable, they all had interesting quirks and ideas, some flirted with the morally grey zone more than others, but they were all so fleshed out and... evil. Yet they still weirdly felt so human. It was a conflicting read, where I cheered from joy when they died, but when they were alive I was ever so interested in what they were about to do. Back to "The Second Contract", and it's The Fable againts The Rumor, another organization. This could have been interesting, maybe even a point where Akira met his match, or the Maguro group would fall into despair from a new omnious power.

But no, it was just so, so boring. The new organization is just weak, and this has been known from the start. Even so, it fills the 86 chapters with what could have been a slow burn mystery into so many chapters of meaningless fighting againts the mighty Fable. And it's just sad, because fighting scenes are not Katsuhisa Minami's strong suit. Since the characters are so superhumanly strong, it always felt like watching 2 hitmen deal invisible blows against one another, until one croaks. Which was fine if used sparingly, but now half of the manga has been dedicated to meaningless action, against villains that are just weak and pathethic. To make matters worse, Yoko is reduced to rape bait to make the villains be... villains? Using SA to villainize characters is boring and lazy writing, as a result the villains this time around are uninsteresting, powerless and forgettable.

Even so, do I outright Not Recommend the second installment? It really is a tough one, but as a big fan of "The Fable", I still had fun with it this time around mainly because of two things. The characters are still ever so lovable, and relationships between them continue to grow with the main group. I was introduced by Akira Sato, but I stayed because of Yuko, Kuro, Yuusaki, Azami, Ebihara and Misaki, who turned into such a wonderful character while being very much a side character this time around. Secondly, the humor is still top notch. I'd say almost every joke landed, even the recurring bits were so funny. Sometimes it just amazes me that I can stare at a manga page all the while laughing so hard.

I'm still very much excited for the 3rd installment of Katsuhisa Minami's "The Fable", and I think he has some real gold on his hands. I hope the story evolves into something more akin to the Yakuza games, strong plot but with very funny slice-of-life moments, and it's also where "The Fable" is at it's best. "The Second Contract" is definitly a low, and for people with limited time I can not recommend it. Even so, the first one made me such a fan that it's hard to put my biases aside towards these characteres, and it was still fun to see them around for a second time.

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.