After the most light-hearted arc in the series so far with Kuro and the trip to the woods, The Fable goes dark very fast. The level of coincidence in this series bothers me a bit – everyone seems connected to everyone else. But I suppose in this sort of underworld setting that might not be as unrealistic as one would think. I mean, that is a pretty small world I would imagine – a lot of these people probably do know a lot of the players. Though the Tokyo-Osaka overlaps are stretching the point a bit to be sure.

No question who the new big bad is. It’s Utsubo Rei (Fuji Shinshuu). First off, Fuji is another great addition to a tremendous cast. He’s not what you’d call a household name as a seiyuu (he does a lot of non-anime work) but his turns in Pluto and Nami yo Kitte Kure reveal just how good he is. Utsubo is a real piece of work. He presents himself as a community activist advocating for the protection of children, when in fact what he’s doing is grooming on a societal level. For Utsubo “monster parents” (often referred to as tiger moms in the West) are a Godsend. The more overprotected and sheltered kids are, the more vulnerable they are to his exploitation later.

I don’t know how realistic that is, but it’s a fascinating and chilling idea. Utsubo selects children he sees as promising (they have to be loaded) and plays a long game, pouncing on them when they hit adulthood. To this end he works with a small group (four is his preferred number, like The Beatles). One is Saba Hinako (Anzai Chika), a young woman in a wheelchair. Another is Suzuki Hiroshi (Koyasu Takehito, who strikes me as a rare miscast for The Fable), seemingly the muscle. And the new recruit is Isaki Tsutomu (Kanemitsu Yoshihiro).

Isaki, it seems, has been recruited primarily because he used to be in Maguro. Utsubo has heard rumors of “Fable” being connected to the Maguro group, and apparently sees this as a potential complication. Isaki’s first assignment is to try and gather some intel from his old gang, but when he tries to do so from Kuro in a casual setting, the latter immediately smells a rat and freezes him out. But this is not the only Akira connection. He sees Hinako in the park and recognizes her as the driver of one of his victims – from a job he pulled four years earlier. Which, as I said, does stretch credulity a bit.

This is already pretty tangled. Utsubo is using Hinako as a sexual slave, and possibly drugging her as well. Not only that, there’s yet another coincidence as his next target is none other than Kainuma-san (who’s 23, and has been on Utsubo’s radar for 13 years). I guess Kainuma comes from money, and once Utsubo starts digging on him they certainly aren’t going to have any problem finding exploitable info. Kainuma is absolute scum and I’m not going to feel any sympathy for him, but things could get really ugly really quickly. And messy, which is a problem for Akira…

As for Akira, he clearly has a weakness for the damsel-in-distress trope, and just as clearly (he tells Youko to dig for background) already sees Hinako as a prime candidate. I don’t think you’d pick anybody in a head-to-head with Akira (or Fable), but Utsubo is clearly no one to take lightly. He’s a great villain in a different way than Kojima was, though no less abjectly evil. Fuji is magnificent in this role already – his performance instantly gives Utsubo gravitas, and sets up the enticing prospects of a pretty intense showdown for this next (final?) arc.