Mujina: Into the Deep vol. 2

Ubume has just completed her first job as a bottom-ranked Mujina:  Kidnapping the brains behind an idol to make him look like an idiot during a televised information show.  However, said brains has a proposition for our rights-less assassin.  The husband and wife team who ran the agency that groomed her boy into an idol, the Megidos, also have a penchant for abusing the talent under them.  She wants Ubume to take them out – for free.  Which is something that the killer is willing to do as such a job will let everyone know that she’s not some bottom-tier scum.  Additionally, why would someone want to become a Mujina?  The money you get from selling your rights may be great, but what do you do when it runs out?

Two volumes in and “Mujina” continues to present as a dystopic action series.  We’ve got a main story where Ubume has to take out some obvious bad guys with their own obvious style in over-the-top ways.  She even gets a moment where a supplier hooks her up with some new gear to do it.  Oh, and did I mention that mangaka Inio Asano loves to focus right on her ass during all the fight scenes?  Even new Mujina Mai gets a similar treatment during her brief debut at the end of the volume.

This being an Asano series, that’s not all there is to it.  He’s also concerned with digging into his cast’s minds to show us what makes them tick.  We get to see game developer Terumi try to manage the family he couldn’t make with his own flesh and blood with these new kids like Ubume and teen Junko.  Even professional psychopath Tenko gets hints that there’s more to her pleasure-at-all-costs mindset, and that’s the important thing to note here.  Asano has shown that he’s good at surprising readers with what’s really going on in his series, and I’m getting the feeling that he’s setting things up for a similar rug-pull down the line.  So enjoy the action while you can, because it likely won’t be that way the longer this title goes on for.