Inio Asano has always existed at the periphery of manga’s mainstream, straddling a fragile line between introspection and despair, realism and surrealism. Lauded by The Yomiuri Shimbun as "one of the voices of his generation," Asano’s body of work—from the existential ennui of Solanin to the psychological maelstrom of Goodnight Punpun—has long reflected the malaise of modern life in Japan with striking candor and breathtaking artistic precision. His stories are often uncomfortable mirrors, held up to the face of society and the self, reflecting not just what is, but what festers just beneath.

It’s with this understanding that Mujina into the Deep feels like a jarring, even alien departure. Where once Asano channeled his trademark nihilism into deeply personal narratives—Downfall’s brutal examination of artistic burnout and Nijigahara Holograph’s fractured storytelling being standouts—Mujina stumbles into territory that feels performative, if not wholly unrecognizable.

Set in the bustling, violent underworld of Tsukumo City, Mujina follows Ubume, an amnesiac katana-wielding assassin operating under the cryptic Mujina organization. In theory, the story promises a kinetic blend of high-octane action and character-driven mystery. In execution, however, it becomes a caricature of itself—a muddled attempt to marry John Wick-style violence with the waifu-fetishization endemic to certain subgenres of seinen manga.

Asano’s narrative instincts, once so precise and devastating, seem diluted here. Mujina lacks the emotional intelligence that elevated A Girl on the Shore’s raw exploration of adolescent sexuality or the societal anxiety pulsing beneath Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction. Instead, we are treated to a glut of stylized violence, overt sexualization, and paper-thin characters whose only function is to titillate or deliver exposition. You could quite literally create a drinking game around the recurring ass shots and gratuitous sex scenes that border on parody—absent is the emotional or narrative justification that once defined Asano’s approach to adult themes.

Ubume is a cipher without the intrigue; a less compelling Alita clad in fetishwear. Her rival Tenko is little more than a yandere archetype masquerading as depth. Supporting characters like Juno Oushima and Terumi Morgan serve either as decoration or thinly-veiled mouthpieces for Asano’s own personal grievances—particularly in the case of Morgan, whose monologues about failed marriages and societal disillusionment feel uncomfortably self-inserted, perhaps a lingering echo of Asano’s very public divorce from fellow mangaka Akane Torikai.

It's difficult not to see Mujina into the Deep as a work emerging from personal crisis—a flailing attempt to reinvent Asano’s storytelling within the framework of genre convention. But in doing so, he abandons the voice that made him essential in the first place. The social critique, the existential poetry, the brutal honesty—all replaced by tired tropes and surface-level spectacle.

And yet, even as the story falters, Asano’s visual artistry remains transcendent. His mastery of panel composition, environmental detail, and cinematic movement is arguably at its peak here. The kinetic energy of the action sequences outpaces contemporaries like Jujutsu Kaisen or My Hero Academia, and his backgrounds evoke a gritty, hyper-detailed Tokyo that feels both alien and intimately familiar. One cannot help but linger on the beauty of a cityscape soaked in neon melancholy, even as the narrative itself collapses under its own pretense.

Final Thoughts:

Mujina into the Deep is Asano’s most technically polished yet thematically hollow work—a contradiction that leaves a bitter aftertaste. It reads less like an evolution and more like an abandonment of what made his previous stories resonate: the pain, the honesty, the uncomfortable silences between panels. In the rush to emulate mainstream trends, Asano has traded his singular voice for something more marketable, but far less meaningful.

Unless you are here purely for the visuals—and they are worth admiring—skip this one. Instead, revisit Downfall, Solanin, or his haunting one-shots like TEMPEST and 1999 (What a Wonderful World). Those are the works of a man who once dared to make manga bleed with real emotion.

Asano was once the chronicler of quiet despair and quiet hope. With Mujina, he merely echoes.