I learned a long time ago that looking for realistic portrayal of organized crime in animanga was barking up the wrong tree. So it’s not a prerequisite for me to enjoy a series by any means (Hinamatsuri was fun, for example). But it is nice, all the more so because of how rare it is. I’m obviously in no position to speak authoritatively about what is and isn’t a realistic portrayal of yakuza. But under the hood, I suspect that The Fable comes pretty close in some ways. Mobsters, maybe to a lesser extent than in most fields admittedly, surely come in a wide variety. When it comes to things like morals, they aren’t all going to be the same. But most of them, by definition, are going to be pretty bad people.

Kojima is, by any standard, bad people. He’s evil to the point where it causes problems for his fellow mobsters. His move to blackmail Misaki into being a call girl is pure scummery, but it’s par for the course for him. And while I admit Takahashi is in a bad spot, he’s now complicit in everything Kojima does. Whatever chance there was for Fable to live a peaceful life for a year in Osaka (which he seems to genuinely want) went up in smoke the moment Kojima got out of prison (for murder), that much is for sure. And Misaki is in an incredibly bad situation here.

Misaki clearly toys with the idea of asking Fable for help. That’s why she asks him out for dinner. But she’s held back by the misapprehension about his supposed cowardice under fire. Misaki senses, though, that something is off about that. Fable’s strength shines through his act, no matter how earnestly he tries to keep it up. Even so, she refuses to rely on him (though he too has picked up on the wrongness of the situation). Her associates are already in danger from Kojima – she doesn’t want to add more to the pile by dragging “Satou” into it.

Fable is emerging as a fascinating figure. He’s weird to be sure, but you don’t get where he has without having something going upstairs. All that talk about the jazz of the forest reflects that Fable is a thinker, albeit a very unorthodox one. He really does seem to want to opt out of dark shit for the next year, but he can’t escape who he is. Those who know his secret want to use him, and those that don’t sense that he’s a power to be reckoned with.

Kojima has engendered trouble on many fronts. Sanagawa has pieced together what’s going on, and he’s pretty much an old-school gangster who prefers to play hardball. The Boss seems more than anything to want to avoid conflict – he probably knows what Sanagawa claims about Kojima is true but doesn’t want the responsibility of dealing with it. Maybe it’s out of deference to Ebihara, maybe he’s  genuinely afraid of Kojima himself. Sanagawa takes his indifference more or less as license to act on his own, and his idea of action is to bring in a pro to take Kojima out on his own volition.

As for Ebihara, he’s obviously not stupid. He knows his brother is big trouble, and causing it. But he’s still Kojima’s big brother, and Ebihara doesn’t want to let what’s about to happen go down – he still thinks he can protect Kojima. He calls in a favor from a very reluctant Fable, who has tremendous skill at things besides killing people. He does what Ebihara asks and scopes out “The Warehouse”, the apartment where Kojima took out Sanagawa’s front man. Ebihara owes Fable now, but he raises the stakes and asks him to straight-up intervene. He offers his precious Hakosuka – not because he thinks Fable gives a damn about it, but as proof of how much this means to him.

I do feel for Fable here, but only to a point. He’s in the business – he has no right to be surprised at being dragged back into trouble when he’s just trying to chill out. Of course he could take out Kojima whenever he wanted, but that would be breaking his vow to his boss. Not to mention making an enemy of Ebihara. All of these people are tainted by the life they’ve chosen, even when they try and leave it behind. That’s a pretty realistic theme for The Fable, a show that’s been consistently improving across the length of its run.