Mujina: Into the Deep vol. 1

Inio Asano is one of those creators who has done such interesting work in the past that I’m always up for checking out what he’s done next.  In addressing post-college twentysomething angst in “Solanin,” charting a young boy’s troubled development through a clever visual metaphor in “Goodnight Punpun,” showing us the dehumanizing effects of life during wartime in “Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction,” or just showing us the surreal side of everyday life in “What a Wonderful World,” he’s endeared himself to me as a major creative talent.  Not that everything he’s done has been a resounding success as “Nijigahara Holograph” fell more on the inscrutable side of “Lynchian,” and “Downfall” felt too consumed with its self-importance.  So while it wasn’t guaranteed that I was going to like his latest series, there was no way that I wasn’t going to buy it and find out for myself.

“Mujina” takes place in a world that’s very similar to our own with a few key differences.  Sure, game developers are still overworked and underpaid, people spend lots of time on their phones following the latest streaming stars, and there’s a seedy underworld catering to criminals and sexual deviants.  Yet this is also a world, or at least a version of Japan within it, that has introduced a law called The Human Rights Protection Act.  Originally aimed at helping curb the aging population in the country, by designating people over 85 as End-Stage Seniors, revoking their human rights, and shipping them off to “special senior zones,” it has also created another problem.

If human rights can be revoked, then it was reasoned that they can also be given up willingly.  This has led to the rise of the Mujina, younger people who have given up or lost their human rights for one reason or another.  This means that they’re barred from using places and services that humans with rights take for granted – regular stores, public transportation, hospitals, the police.  However, as they’re not protected by society, Mujina aren’t subject to its laws either.  So if one of them wanted to take up a job as, say, a freelance assassin, they could totally do that.

This is how Ubume makes her living and we’re introduced to her as she’s running through the Tokyo rooftops, slicing up some scummy-looking guys for undisclosed reasons.  While this is happening, young “eighteen-year-old” Junko has just arrived in the city and is met by some guy who is clearly looking to exploit her.  Then, in the second prologue chapter, we’re introduced to Terumi Morgan, the middle-aged, half-Japanese, half-Canadian head of a small software development company.  He’s burning himself out trying to manage the company’s encroaching deadlines and his employees’ lackadaisical approach to work.  So when they tell him about how these Mujina are all the rage among the youth, Terumi is more than inclined to just roll his eyes – until circumstances bring him face-to-face with one.

There’s a lot about “Mujina” that will be familiar to longtime readers of Asano.  The ridiculously intricate cityscape backgrounds are the biggest visual signifier here.  Yet there’s also the weird idiosyncrasies he brings to his characters.  Ubume being a stone-cold killer who is also much older than you’d think she is, and is haunted by the memory of someone in a tanuki suit standing over a massacre.  Junko initially gives the impression of someone who’s in way over her head, until you find out the messed up reasons she’s here in the first place and what she hopes to achieve here.  Then there’s also the unapologetic sexual action strewn throughout the volume that’s tame in some ways and in-your-face ridiculous in others.

What’s unlike the mangaka’s previous work here is how action-oriented it feels.  Asano hasn’t really been big on that kind of thing before, with most of the violence in “Destruction” being used to underscore the horrors of war than pure thrills.  This time we’ve got skilled, sword-wielding assassins slicing people up and fighting each other, while they use bionic boots to perform incredible acrobatic feats in the process.  Which also allows him to show off lots of shots of the girls short and tight shorts as they fight!

This, along with the general premise of the series, has “Mujina” feeling like a shonen series in seinen clothing at first.  Moreso once Ubume finds herself busted down to being a low-rank killer over the course of the story and then facing the challenge of having to fight her way up all over again. This time, with the added incentive of helping out a fellow human in the process.  Asano’s character-first approach to all this helps it stand out, but there’s also another distinguishing feature to it that’s likely to prove more divisive.

That would be Terumi who bring serious divorced middle-aged dad energy to this story.  He’s frustrated by his lot in life, particularly with how everything’s changing around him in ways that he can’t quite relate to.  What’s up with this younger generation and their veneration of freelance killers as avatars of freedom?  Why doesn’t my stepson want anything to do with me anymore?  Why does the hipster girl at the company no longer wear a bra anymore?  Expect a lot of these kinds of sentiments whenever Terumi is on the scene.

If I had to guess, Terumi is Asano’s own way of working through his own middle-aged-man issues as he’s no longer the young wunderkind who delivered “Solanin.”  I’m a lot more sympathetic to this protagonist’s issues than the more obvious self-insert protagonist of “Downfall,” however.  Terumi’s malaise feels better-realized and more aligned with the dystopic setting of this world – he can’t even contemplate suicide without the State getting wind of something being up.  The man is also more amenable to being caught up in the larger plot for these reasons, as well as his own, which are pretty basic but will likely be given a distinctive spin as the series goes on.

Which I will definitely be following up on as I read subsequent volumes.  The biggest issue with “Mujina” is that it feels like Asano is trying to deliver something more obviously commercial with his action-driven setup and struggle against the powers-that-be here.  Tenko is the only part of that which truly grates as her personality is defined only as “sexual predator” at this point.  Everything else, however, benefits from the writer’s idiosyncratic approach and his efforts to make sure the main cast has plenty of depth to make them interesting.  Those cityscapes too!  All of these things combine to make for a strong start to this series, and one that could wind up getting better as we get to know more about it.