People are getting addicted! Why the Twitter ads for “The Fable” are the most powerful?

All the episodes are free!　Why in the world would they use such a “magical” advertising strategy?

The Fable” Twitter ads are 100 percent funny” “I wish all Twitter ads were Fable” and so on. ……

This summer, a large number of people became addicted to Twitter ads for Katsuhisa Minami’s manga “The Fable,” which has been made into a live-action movie twice.

The story of “The Fable” is about a genius hitman known only by the nickname “Fable” (fable) in the underworld due to his legendary strength, who is ordered by his boss to take a year off from his job as a hitman and live as a civilian in Osaka. The protagonist, who is given the alias “Akira Sato,” tries to live peacefully with his partner “Yoko Sato” (alias), but they get into trouble one after another. ……

To be honest, those who are not interested in manga depicting violence and the underworld may not pick up this work. However, if you take a peek at the contents of the twitter ads, there you will find a series of sake series in which the alcoholic Yoko plays with men by getting them drunk, a series of innocent illustrations drawn by a genius at killing like an infant, and so on. …… What a gag manga!” It’s too cute and heartwarming!” Many people start to read the manga and get hooked on the depths of the manga.

Why in the world did they put up such an evil Twitter ad?　We asked Mr. Kiyoshi Tasaka of the Young Magazine editorial department, who has been in charge of author Katsuhisa Minami since his debut.

Twitter ads received a tremendous response…and a different readership than before!

I only check the Twitter ads as a final supervisor, but thankfully, we have been able to reach readers we have never reached before, such as the younger generation and female readers, thanks to the considerable amount of money spent on advertising and the good choices made. I feel that we are reaching a segment of readers that we have never reached before, such as the younger generation and women,” says Kiyoshi Tasaka.

In fact, when the series was first published, sales were not very strong. However, the series gradually gained popularity, and with the influence of the movie adaptation and Twitter advertisements, digital sales are now overwhelmingly higher than print sales.

When we first started advertising, there was a lot of overlap in the content. It was very catchy, but honestly, it was like, ‘Here we go again (laughs).

But over time, as more and more variations emerged, we came up with series such as Yoko’s drinking and Akira’s illustrations.

I think the main reason why people say it’s interesting is that the 18-20 page weekly serialization continues in a series of roughly 3 or at most 5 scenes, so it’s easy to cut out one scene on Twitter.

There is a heartwarming part where the main character and his siblings live to be normal, a gag part derived from the heartwarming part, and then a violent part with yakuza and underworld people, so there are variations in the characters and three different flavors overlapping each other, making it easy to cut out from those parts. I feel like there’s a certain shape to it.”

On Twitter, there are tweets that say, “I bought the whole book because of the Twitter ads. On the other hand, it is a wonder if the free trial of all the episodes until the end of September will be good for business.

At first, I felt sorry for the people who had already bought the magazine by trying it out digitally for free, but the sales staff said, ‘We’ll never do that. But the sales manager said, ‘You should definitely do it,’ so with Dr. Minami’s approval, we decided to make all the stories free, with no restrictions, and asked him to go ahead and do it.

In fact, the results clearly showed that “the more you show (for free), the more it sells,” and this was clearly reflected in our status, so I knew that we had to let people know about it.

What surprised me was that even though you can only read a few episodes a day for a limited time, there were some fierce readers who quickly finished reading all the episodes while earning a lot of points and sharing devices.

To be honest, even though the picture was not something that people would surely take and eat, like a sweet next to the cash register at a convenience store, but rather greasy and punchy, if people read it for free first, they were hooked. There are many ways to sell comics, but I think ‘The Fable’ was a good fit with twitter.”

In Pursuit of Reality…Author Katsuhisa Minami’s Thorough “Preparation

Katsuhisa Minami is a manga artist who, after graduating from junior high school, worked at various jobs in the artisanal field before making his debut in 1999 with “Naniwa Tomoare,” which won the runner-up prize at the 41st Chiba Tetsuya Award. Tasaka voluntarily raised his hand when he won the Chiba Tetsuya Award and was put in charge of the project.

He said, “I made a promise to my father that if I couldn’t become a manga artist by the time I was 30, I should give up. He had tried to become a cartoonist when he was younger, but the results were not good enough, so he must have tried one more time while working at various jobs.

I was attracted to his debut work because the yankee delinquents were very realistic and graphic. Even now, sometimes I feel as if I am watching a documentary about living people, even though I am supposed to be reading a comic book.

He says that due in part to his own unique career as a ringmaster and having moved from one job to another, unexpected combinations are created in the composition of three or four scenes. For example, just when the violence is about to become too much, a gag or a heartwarming routine is interspersed.

I think the author probably feels the same way about the reader’s pain when the story gets a little heavy. It is not a calculation, but an instinctive feeling, a natural intuition that allows him to mix hard and soft elements in his drawings. The hard side and the soft side are both there, and it is precisely because there is a bit of laughter in the hard side that the reality of human nature comes out.

In his pursuit of reality, Minami does many things. For example, the depiction of the main character, Akira Sato, holed up in the mountains for two days, catching snakes and eating them is one of the things he actually did because he said, “You never know unless you try.

He said, “Survival used to invite me a lot too, but I was a fraud for going and not going at all, so they don’t invite me anymore (laughs).

(Laughs.) He says that he originally did survival to draw manga, but it turned out to be surprisingly interesting, and from there it became a hobby. He still goes to the mountains with his friends twice a year when he has a break in the series, for example, for three days and two nights. It’s quite a strenuous camping trip, and they eat a variety of foods from the mountains and the sea.

The idea for the character Zen-chan, who is overwhelmingly strong and attractive in “Naniwa Tomoare,” was originally conceived as an assassin, and from there, the story of “killing” being sealed off was born.

In the case of Akira Sato, he did not become a killer because he wanted to be strong, but because he was trained from childhood and was ordered to kill as a profession. In a sense, he is a pure person who knows nothing but killing, so I thought it would be interesting to depict his ordinary life, as he may lack something or be distorted in some way.

Even so, he is fundamentally sensitive and adaptable, and is a professional who goes after everything, so when he develops feelings for the people who have helped him, that’s where the cuteness comes in.

Is the author Ms. Minami also like Akira Sato?

I think there is an Akira Sato component. Most manga artists submit their manuscripts to meet the weekly deadline, but Mr. Minami is always ready to respond to any inconvenient point or better direction that he finds. I understand that you prepare your manuscripts one week in advance so that you can respond to any inconvenience or better direction that you find.

He is a man who follows the rules to the letter in his work, but we are also similar in that we always have an eye for questioning what is considered common sense in the general society, in a positive sense. Besides, Dr. Minami is actually not very good with digital technology. He has moved several times, but has always lived in Osaka since his debut, so we have always had meetings by fax since his debut, and we only meet in person 4 to 5 times a year (laugh). (Laughs.) Of course, I call him often, but I can tell how he is feeling just by listening to his voice on the phone.

What is also unique is his thorough “preparation” in pursuit of reality.

Dr. Minami himself reads books of all genres and does thorough preliminary research. For example, in an episode about an assassin who uses poisonous mushrooms, he describes how he earnestly cultivates mushrooms while trying to find out the target’s usual behavior patterns, escape routes, and so on. This trick is very realistic. Focusing on the property of an actual poisonous mushroom called Hitoyatake, which causes vomiting and vertigo when alcohol is consumed after eating it, he combines the poisonous mushroom with an original poisonous fungus to increase its toxicity and then injects the ingredient into the food. However, nothing happens at that point, and the onset of the disease occurs the moment alcohol is taken, which is a technique of mixing fact with fiction.”

In addition, there was a surprising episode in which he actually built the real thing in pursuit of reality.

We built the cars that actually appear in the film, and the large warehouse that appears in “The Fable” was actually built to look like a secret base for the friends. What was interesting was when we created the character Utsuho.

Since Utsuho is a character who violates various social taboos, we wondered what kind of place he would live in, so we actually searched for real estate, rented a room, and set up the interior in various ways, and then drew the character based on our image of the character.

Then, when the episode was over and they no longer needed the room, they would cancel the lease or sell what they no longer needed. I think the feelings I had when I was actually searching for real estate were also used to create the characters.

Incidentally, the second part of the series, which is currently being serialized, takes place in the present day of the COVID-19 crisis, and the story takes an unexpected turn when Sato and his friends, who are now out of the business of being hit men, take up “renting a room” to make ends meet.

The COVID-19 crisis came just as the professor decided not to do anything for about a year after the end of the first part of the long-running serialization. This story was born because he could no longer conduct interviews or travel, and he could no longer carry out his original plan.

Click here for “The Fable” (YANMAGA WEB)