Well, that was expected.
Summary:
- The Fable Episode 1 is out — and the animation is very bad.
- This disappoints the fans who wanted a good adaptation of the iconic manga.
- While the voice acting is really good, it’s still probably better to read the manga.
The Fable is an iconic manga. It follows a professional killer who is ordered (by his boss) to live like a normal citizen — which means no killing or acting suspiciously — for a year. This is much harder than it looks like — the series is essentially a gag comedy.
Naturally, when the anime adaptation was announced, fans were extremely happy. However, after some time, that happiness turned to concern, as the anime was being handled by studio Tezuka Productions. Unfortunately, the first episode did little to alleviate these concerns.
It Looks Really Bad
To be fair, fans’ concerns about the animation in the anime weren’t baseless. The key visual already looked pretty janky, and the PVs didn’t help, either.
Studio Tezuka Productions isn’t exactly known for producing well-animated series: in fact, if their anime are great, they are usually great in spite of limited production values.
Unfortunately, The Fable isn’t an exception from this trend. In fact, it might arguably have worse visuals than the rest of the series by the studio. Of course, fans are upset about this — and with how beloved the manga is, this sentiment is entirely justified.
Perhaps the most bizarre part of the anime is the opening. Fans pointed out how low-quality the animation was. When the opening is supposed to showcase the strong sides of the anime, this makes the situation even worse — despite the song actually being quite good.
There Are Some Good Aspects to the Anime
There are some strong points about the anime, though — but none of them comes from animation. It is quite a faithful adaptation with decent pacing, and jokes are very well-timed.
As an adaptation, it would actually be a pretty good one — if only the animation wasn’t absolutely terrible. The voice actors are also cast incredibly well, and it’s sad to see the anime being disappointing in one of its most important aspects.
Still, some say it is not that bad — or at least, is definitely watchable. The Fable isn’t really an action manga, and it doesn’t need top-tier animation to deliver its comedy. However, with how weird the character designs are compared to the source material, many find it hard to watch the anime already.
Manga Fans Will Tell You to Just Read It Instead
Many source readers have already decided to ignore this adaptation. Not only does it look bad, it’s also scheduled for 25 episodes.
While that’s more than many anime get these days, it’s also not enough to adapt all 200+ chapters of the manga — and it’s hard to imagine it will ever get a sequel.