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 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 ... pair as they separate from the underground world. But to create conflict and drive in the story they've just inserted a rival gang with little buildup and more focused on turf wars. It also seems to suffer from typical power-level issues and feels a little cheap to just pit the cast against another hidden group of assassins (Rumor) like themselves.

Hopefully the conflict with the rivals turns out to be just as suspenseful and complex as the prequel. Outside of the direction, I feel the author is still putting great effort into the humor and background - there are still scenes that leave my belly aching from laughter. The setting incorporating a lot of cultural and social impacts of Covid is certainly unique and hope they expand on it. A little rocky on the start, but I have high hopes for this sequel's potential.

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.