The Fable
The Fable is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by. It was serialized in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Weekly Young Magazine from November 2014 to November 2019, with its chapters collected in 22 volumes. A sequel series, titled The Fable: The Second Contact, ran in Weekly Young Magazine from July 2021 to July 2023. A third series, titled The Fable: The Third Secret, began serialization in March 2025.
A live-action film adaptation premiered in Japan in June 2019 and a sequel premiered in June 2021. An anime television series adaptation produced by Tezuka Productions aired from April to September 2024.
By June 2024, the manga had over 25 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series. In 2017, The Fable won the 41st Kodansha Manga Award for the General category.
Plot
An exceptionally skilled professional killer known as "Fable" is feared by the Japanese underworld, politicians, mobsters, and public figures. One day, his sponsor orders him to put everything on hold and lead the life of an ordinary citizen with the assistance of a yakuza clan in Osaka. He is also banned from killing anyone for an entire year. Armed with his Nighthawk pistol and given the pseudonym of Akira Sato, Fable must adjust to normal life alongside his assistant, who is ordered to act as his sister and given the pseudonym of Yoko, all while dealing with criminal elements in Osaka that have their own suspicions about his past.Characters
; Akira Sato; Yoko Sato
; Boss
; Misaki Shimizu
; Jackal Tomioka
; Hiroshi Hamada
; Takeshi Ebihara
; Kenji Kojima
; Shuichi Sunagawa
; Ryo Kuroshio
; Katsuya Takahashi
; Matsu
; Kenjiro Takoda
; Etsuji Kainuma
; Master
; Yuki Kawai
; Rei Utsubo
; Hinako Saba
; Hiroshi Suzuki
; Tsutomu Isaki
Media
Manga
Written and illustrated by, The Fable was serialized in Kodansha's manga magazine Weekly Young Magazine from November 1, 2014, to November 18, 2019. Kodansha collected its chapters in 22 volumes, released from March 6, 2015, to June 5, 2020.A sequel, titled The Fable: The Second Contact, ran in Weekly Young Magazine from July 19, 2021, to July 10, 2023. Kodansha collected its chapters in nine volumes, released from November 5, 2021, to November 6, 2023.
A spin-off, also titled The Fable, but written in hiragana instead of katakana, was published on online platform from March 6, 2018, to February 26, 2019. A collected, which also includes other stories by Minami, was published on June 5, 2020.
A third series, titled The Fable: The Third Secret, began serialization in Weekly Young Magazine on March 17, 2025. The series is published digitally in English by Kodansha on its K Manga digital service.
In March 2022, Kodansha USA announced it had licensed the series for English digital publication; in October 2023, it was announced that the manga would be published in print, with the first volume released on April 9, 2024.
Live-action films
A live-action film adaptation directed by Kan Eguchi premiered in Japan on June 21, 2019. The film stars Junichi Okada as Fable.A sequel film, titled The Fable: The Killer Who Doesn't Kill, was originally announced to premiere on February 5, 2021; however, a month prior to the planned release date, it was announced that the film would be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it eventually premiered on June 18 of that same year.
Anime
An anime television series adaptation was announced on July 10, 2023. It was animated by Tezuka Productions and directed by Ryōsuke Takahashi, with scripts supervised by Yūya Takashima and co-written by Mayumi Morita, character designs handled by Kyuma Oshita, Saki Hasegawa and Junichi Hayama, and music composed by Shuichiro Fukuhiro. The series aired from April 7 to September 29, 2024, on Nippon TV and its affiliates. The first opening theme song is "Professionalism feat. Hannya", performed by ALI, while the first ending theme song is "Odd Numbers", performed by. The second opening theme song is "Switch", performed by Umeda Cypher, while the second ending theme song is "Beyond feat. Mari", performed by ALI. The adaptation was announced to be produced under Disney's partnership with Kodansha, streaming on Disney+ worldwide and Hulu in the United States.Episodes
Video game
In September 2024, Kodansha Game Creators' Lab announced that Mono Entertainment was developing a roguelike deck-building video game, titled The Fable: Manga Build Roguelike, for Windows and Nintendo Switch. A demo of the game was displayed at the Kodansha Game Creators' Lab booth at Tokyo Game Show 2024. It was released on November 6, 2025, and is available in Japanese, English, and traditional/simplified Chinese.Reception
By January 2021, the manga had eight million copies in circulation; 15 million copies in circulation by March 2022; over 20 million copies in circulation by October 2022; and over 25 million copies in circulation by June 2024.The Fable won the 41st Kodansha Manga Award for the general category in 2017. Alongside Blue Period, the series ranked 14th on Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! list of best manga of 2020 for male readers. It was picked as a nominee for "Best Comic" at the 51st Angoulême International Comics Festival, held in 2024.