Manga Review: Deep 3 Volume 1
Throughout different sports manga, we’ve seen protagonists be introduced to the sport for the first time, some that find their calling, some that start out struggling but eventually become better players. Deep 3 took me on a journey, one that I had not been on before by showcasing a player with incredible talent from the start who still needs to overcome a different kind of hurdle.
Official Summary
Demian Kawai has been devoting himself to basketball in Japan with the goal of becoming the top scorer in the world's top professional league, the NBO. However, this promising young player was struck by the tragedy of the yips, a condition that causes his arms to stiffen up whenever he approaches the goal. Can he persevere and realize his dream?
Quick Information
Writer: Mitsuhiro Mizuno
Artist: Ryosuke Tobimatsu
Publisher: TOKYOPOP
Published: March 1, 2026
Genre: Drama, Sports
Rating: 13+
Series Status: Ongoing
Review
Deep 3 is about a high school basketball player named Demian who was once the best player on his team with a bright future. After an injury he contracts the yips and is unable to play basketball to the best of his abilities.
I was immediately drawn to his title because the story centers around an athlete dealing with the yips. For those who are not aware, the yips is “a state of nervous tension affecting an athlete in the performance of a crucial action”. However, some medical studies have found the yips can also be caused by a physical condition instead of just performance anxiety. No matter the sport you can find cases of athletes with the yips, with some who recovered and some who had to quit their profession over it.
In the first chapter, we see Demian was capable of making remarkable plays before facing a sudden injury in the middle of a game. Despite his pain, he goes to the free throw line but misses both shots causing his team to lose. For me personally, this scene felt all the more devastating and took me back to my own high school basketball career where this happened to me. The mangaka shows the impact this has on Demian and how the incident continues to haunt him going forward. This mental injury made me interested in seeing how Demian would deal with everything.
The pacing of this story could have been slowed down more to establish Demian’s character, his struggles with the yips, and his relationship to his teammates. Despite the faster pace, it didn’t take away from the overall message that was being conveyed in the writing. The story certainly sets up a lot of questions about Demian’s past, his injury, and the other players in the high school tournament.
While there are no complex backgrounds, the art handles the motion of each character well as we follow them through a basketball game, whether that's the impact from a dunk or the movement of a player’s jersey as they dribble. Character designs are unique enough to tell each character apart.
I also thoroughly enjoyed reading the special essay at the end of this volume which explained how Mitsuhiro Mizuno came up with this story and how it was inspired by an actual Japanese basketball player.
Even if you’ve never played sports, even if you’ve never watched a game before, the themes in this manga are universal. How do you deal with failure? How do you overcome doubt? How do you deal with adversity? These are questions everyone has asked at some point in their life.
If you are looking for a sports story that deals with another side of being an athlete, take a shot with Deep 3.
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