Everyone is carrying baggage that informs their attitude or behavior. That theme seems to be at the heart of Here U Are, a boys’ love romance about university students who are processing a lot of external events. The series feels pretty typical, focusing on two young men with very different appearances, outlooks, and personality types, finding a sense of solidarity with each other. Huan Li is a tall, seemingly emotionless and borderline rude musician who is still processing the death of his mother, which happened just a month prior to him starting classes. He’s very emotionally withdrawn, and while he seems to have a good heart, he is definitely not good at expressing that, which led to some comedic moments that got a good laugh from the audience at New York Comic Con, where the first two episodes were previewed.

Yang Yu, in contrast, is a lot more sociable and able to read the room, given that he has a position at the university where he needs to work with or introduce a lot of students. However, he might ironically have less patience for people than even Huan Li does. I think I liked his characterization a bit more since it was clear he was projecting a lot of niceness to hide a lot of rough edges beneath the surface. What shocked me about this show is that it seems that his identity as being explicitly gay and how people treat him is at the forefront of the show. My favorite scene in the premiere was when a jerk tries to make a big deal about him being gay, but Yang Yu just comes out about it and flips it around back on the bully. Then, when he gets confronted again, Yang Yu gets frustrated and physically retaliates, saying that maybe he was too nice. The second episode ends with a little bit of a dark confrontation that might allude to a lot of the inner workings of gay culture. The last scene literally takes place at a gay bar, and Yang Yu seems to always be on the lookout for people who are trying to cause trouble for the gay community.

Despite watching and consuming a lot of boys’ love stories, very rarely do I find myself coming across a show that has the culture or explicitness of being gay brought to the forefront of the story. As a non-binary person myself, I actually found a lot of this premise very relatable, with a lot of setup for heavy subject matter to get confronted in the future. The idea of how we treat ourselves and how we treat other people inadvertently ends up shaping who we are is interesting. I like how the show is setting up that Yang Yu and Huan Li can feel a little bit vulnerable around each other and that might be the catalyst for why they get together. It’s a little basic, but the execution is incredibly solid, with a good sense of comedy and strong character dynamics that feel surprisingly real. The show wasn’t originally on my radar, but after getting a little taste, it is definitely going to be something that I am adamantly looking forward to when it comes out soon.

Volume four is where I truly fell in love with Akane-banashi, for one specific reason: Issho Arakawa. As much as I love Akane as a protagonist and have grown to love her growth and journey over the run of the series, Issho is equally important and valuable to the strength of the series for how unique a “villain” he really is. There’s often discussion about compelling villains and “reasonable” ones who are supposed to have potentially good ideas but poor execution, like many of the Shonen Jump villains of yore. But Issho Arakawa isn’t a world-destroying supervillain; he’s the pinnacle of an art form, and he believes he is responsible for its security and sanctity. His confrontation with Akane is compelling and thrilling, setting much of the foundation for the series that, upon rereading it for this review, I have to commend Yūki Suenaga‘s foresight; so many important plot points are set up in this single volume. If the first three volumes didn’t fully hook you, volume four is absolutely the make-or-break for the series. If Akane’s confrontation with Issho doesn’t compel you to continue, then not much that comes after will.

Speaking of, volumes 4-6 begin the Zenza Training Arc, in which Akane’s proper entrance into the professional world of Rakugo truly begins. While the first arc introduced the major motion and players, as well as setting Akane up as our protagonist to care for, the Zenza Arc takes the rose colored glasses off the portrayal of rakugo as a profession; almost immediately, Akane is forced to confront that she is no longer protected by her master, Shiguma, or his disciples, and that the working world is one filled with people whose petty grievances, lust for power, and enjoyment of mundane hierarchy can mean the end of one’s career no matter how talented you happen to be. This arc is a bit of a downer, as the story grinds to a halt while the writers focus on how brutal the professional world of “art” can be, hammered home by a heavy focus on the sexism inherent in the rakugo world.

This latter part is offset by the newest rakugoka master that Akane trains under, the harsh, beautiful, and commanding Urara Ransaika. Urara and Akane are an interesting substitute teacher/pupil combination, with Urara’s no-nonsense approach offsetting the narrative about being a woman in a supposed man’s world; there’s not a lot of “girl power” narrative here, just the cold, hard facts that while men’s sexism can kneecap people, in a performance art, it is the strength of one’s art and the response of the crowd that truly matters. These volumes also help develop the secondary cast more, as Rokuro, Hikaru, Kaisei, and Karashi all get some time to shine and get better known by the audience, rather than being treated as one-off characters with flat development; these characters are also professionals working on their craft, and the manga treats them as such.

As far as her development as a protagonist is concerned in general, though, Akane continues to be one of the best Jump, if not manga, protagonists in a while. She does suffer real setbacks, and the juxtaposition of her innate performing skills with her lack of interpersonal ones makes her fun to watch; rather than simply succeeding on the merit of just her performance, multiple characters continue to point out that she is essentially a spoiled child floating on that same talent, and that at some point, she’s going to have to contend with the fact that her limited roster of stories, her acumen, and her overall focus, avenging her father, are all going to eventually leave her hanging if she doesn’t figure out how to actually be both a professional and an artist. As volume six comes to a close, we get more insights into the fascinating workings of Issho, as well as Kaisei’s backstory, where his cool and almost seductive demeanor from the earlier volumes is replaced by one of contempt for Akane; after all, as Issho’s main pupil, and someone who seems to owe much of his life to Issho, what other feeling could Kaisei have towards the girl everyone is talking about instead of him? Still, Kaisei also sees value in Akane, dropping a hint, or a trap, at her feet before the close of the volumes: a Zenza training event held by Ikken Arakawa, one of the Arakawa 4.

There is a little bit of weakness, though, as some of the narrative about Akane’s confrontations with toxic co-workers, superiority and hierarchy, and the conflict between her wunderkind status and the reality that she has had everything handed to her but has developed very little of her own skillset is undercut by her being saved in the story by those same connections; her petty attempt to get back at a toxic Futatsume costs her respect and job opportunities, but she’s also summarily saved almost immediately by the all-star cast of “main characters” that orbit her as the actual main character of a manga. This is perhaps nitpicking, as the manga is still excellent and the narrative compelling, but Akane being thrown into the professional world only to have Rokuro (and by extension, her own master and then Urara) swoop in to save the day, and Akane swaying hearts and minds with her performance, are maybe the most fantastical parts of the narrative. The “villains” of this arc, so to speak, are dispatched by the narrative and sheepishly converted to allies, rather than presenting any realistic stumbling point. Maybe that’s the jaded adult in me who has seen how workplace toxicity is often never truly fair or punished, and that people who don’t deserve to succeed often do, while those who work exceptionally hard find their dreams in flames, but it does make some of this arc’s narrative a bit juvenile in execution.

The official website for the The Fable television anime revealed additional cast and the main visual (pictured) for its second season on Wednesday. The new season will adapt the Yamaoka-hen (Yamaoka Arc) from Katsuhisa Minami‘s crime comedy manga and is scheduled to premiere on the Nippon TV network on January 10, 2027, airing every Sunday at 12:55 a.m.

Cast

Yamaoka: Kouichi Yamadera (Yozakura-san Chi no Daisakusen)

Azami: Takanori Hoshino (Sentai Red Isekai de Boukensha ni Naru)

Eucalyptus: Hiroyuki Yoshino (Yomi no Tsugai)

Koji Mizuno: Satoshi Mikami (Kami no Shizuku)

Jiro: Taiten Kusunoki (Hidarikiki no Eren)

Suzumushi: Seiyuu Fujiwara (Liar Game)

Ryousuke Takahashi (Soukou Kihei Votoms) is returning to direct the second season at Tezuka Productions. Yuuya Takashima is handling the series composition. Mayumi Morita (Megami no Café Terrace) and Yuuya Takashima are writing the script. Saki Hasegawa (Darwin Jihen sub-character design) and Kyuuma Ooshita (My Home Hero chief animation director) are designing the characters. Yo Tsuji (Tasokare Hotel) is composing the music.

The first season aired in 25 episodes in Spring 2024. Disney+ and Hulu simulcasted the anime with subtitles and dub in multiple languages.

Minami serialized the manga in Weekly Young Magazine from November 2014 to November 2019. The sequel, The Fable: The Second Contact, serialized in the same magazine from July 2021 to July 2023.

A second sequel, The Fable: The Third Secret, began in March 2025. Kodansha shipped The Third Secret‘s fifth volume on July 6, with the sixth volume scheduled to go on sale on November 6.

Kodansha USA licensed the original manga in English in March 2022 and released the 22nd and final volume in January 2024. All three manga series are simulpublished on the K Manga platform.

The Fable won at the 41st Kodansha Manga Awards in the General category in 2017. The manga is also placed among the top 20 titles in the Kono Manga ga Sugoi! rankings’ Male Readers division in 2019 and 2020.

Source: Comic Natalie