Warning: The following manga discussed in this review is intended for readers 18 & older.

Sometimes the things that seem cool online aren’t really as they crack up to be in real life. Imagine being a YouTuber, who spends hundreds of hours a month creating content, live-streaming, and interacting with the outside world. On paper, that seems nice. But add on all of the pre-production, post-production, and constant social media plugs, and you’ll find that the average YouTuber has no life outside of your screen. (Do you get why I only do one Duck Amuck in Japan every other week? There’s no way in Hell that I’m going to trade in my social life for a permanent webcam in my face!)

This leads me to the third volume of Inio Asano’s Mujina into the Deep. It takes place in a world where people can sell off their humanity and live outside of the law. But in return, they’re treated worse than garbage, and basically have no rights to call their own. Mujina can’t own a home, be allowed into the hottest strips, or even hold a legal job. So why is someone like Tenko making the mujina life look like a world of glamour, a place where all of your desires will come true?

When Tenko isn’t taking on assassin jobs, she’s rocking it on social media, gaining followers who look up to her in ways that they certainly should not. On top of that, the mujina also finds a way to become a model, to the point where billboards of her showcase her beauty and embrace the life of an insider. However, as someone like Mai finds out, that mujina lifestyle isn’t all that’s cracked up to be.

Even after she’s sold herself to pay for her favorite male host, Mai can’t find that happiness that she was aiming for. So now as a mujina, she takes the road paved with blood in order to make any sort of living. Alas, that road is cut short when Mai is chosen to face off against Tenko to settle a pair of divorcees, which features the fight in glorious detail thanks to Asano’s handiwork. And in the end, readers will be left feeling sad that Mai’s time in Mujina into the Deep has come to a close.

The focus of the manga goes back to Ubume, our main mujina of the series. With her at the age of thirty, her skills have gotten a bit rusty. However, whenever she’s able to pick up a job or offer some sort of intel to a cop seeking info on past sex crimes, Ubume is as handy as ever. What she lacks is the pizzazz that Tenko contains, but then again, what the poster child of mujinas is doing will certainly paint a larger target on her back.

But she’s not the only one dealing with gross life problems. Juno may have her license back, but the grim side of business life wants to make an example of her. Just when she thinks she can enter some sort of normalcy, in come a pair of goons wanting to force her into sex work. Fortunately, a gritty white knight stands in her place and takes his punishment for being somewhat of an upstanding guy.

Honestly, the world of Mujina into the Deep is unfair. And that’s to be expected from an Inio Asano work. Nothing is ever sugarcoated in what he crafts, even if he draws his characters like weird birds or as very cute women. He always finds a way to bring harsh reality back into the fold. His latest work may take place in a futuristic dystopia, but who’s to say what these characters go through isn’t already happening in the modern world?

I’m not trying to be a bummer. Be that as it may, those who read Volume Three of Mujina into the Deep will find something a little too real in what Asano is conveying. Still, that doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s a gripping story, one that will have you flipping through the pages like a raving lunatic. Just keep in mind that, while certain lifestyles seem glamorous, the truth may not be as pretty.

Promotional consideration provided by Chantelle Sturt of VIZ Media. Click here to read past volumes of Mujina into the Deep!