Aya hasn't been around in such a long time, but her old friend is looking forward to seeing her again. He's shocked to see how much she's changed. Not only does she look different, she's become a lot more bold and outspoken. Aya notices just how much the changes seem to turn on her old friend and offers him the deal of a lifetime.

Let's Make a Deal! has story and art by Muo. Translated by Chad O. and lettered by Ailis Preston Bend. Published by Irodori (January 3, 2026). Rated M.

Lucas DeRuyter
Rating:

Following the adage of “if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all,” I probably shouldn't review Muo's Let's Make a Deal! doujin. I've got nothing positive to say about it, and everything in it either feels of little consequence or has been executed better elsewhere. I want to try to meet this work where it's at and find some commendable element within it, but I've got nothing and feel nothing after reading it.

Let's Make a Deal! is an ugly duckling story where the unnamed, no-face, protagonist reconnects with his formerly shy but now vivacious childhood friend Aya. As soon as they meet, the gyaru propositions him for sex in exchange for monetary compensation, and in the end, it's revealed that she's always had romantic feelings for him but couldn't work up the nerve to express them. The two have very little chemistry; we don't have a sense of Aya's interiority until the very end of this work, and the protagonist is as featureless as this work is generic.

The art in Let's Make a Deal! is equally simplistic and uninspired. The backgrounds are virtually nonexistent, which makes it feel like the sex is taking place in a strange void. Furthermore, Aya and the protagonist have some of the most stereotypical “hentai character” designs I've seen in a while, and feel more like the author is drawing what they think a wide audience will appreciate rather than expressing their own preferences. There's also a continuity error with the art, where Aya is established as having black hair as a teenager — meaning she presumably died to blonde before meeting with the protagonist — but when she's drawn as a younger child, her hair is blonde in that flashback! This issue makes the Let's Make a Deal! feel slapdash and like the audience isn't expected to pay attention enough to notice a pretty obvious error.

As for the dialogue, it's awkward at best, and I'm not sure if the fault lies with Muo's writing or Chad O's translation. Aya keeps using the term “Big Guy” to refer to the protagonist, and that both feels too folksy and old-fashioned to be used in a smut comic and out of line for the character. Let's Make a Deal! is about a shy young woman who deliberately turns herself into an object of sexual fixation so she can hook up with her longtime crush, and that premise works much better if she actually talks in a way that's sexually charged.

If I were forced to say one nice thing about it, I guess Let's Make a Deal! doesn't come across as politically or socially offensive to my sensibilities, but that is a nearly subterranean bar to clear, and I don't think folks should waste their time or money on this book.

Bolts
Rating:

Let's Make a Deal is definitely a story that just sort of comes and goes. It is pretty standard with two childhood friends reuniting after a long time only for one of them to have gone over a significant makeover. This of course leads to a sudden surge of sexual tension that almost immediately gets relieved. It isn't until literally one of the final panels of the final page that it's revealed there might've been more intention around the setup then what was initially shown but by the time you finish reading those panels, the book is already over.

The sex scenes itself are intense and I liked the double entendre of the girl who went through the gal makeover constantly calling her childhood friend “big guy.” There are brief moments where it feels like the story is going for an intense attraction via contrast. Like how the faceless lead keeps making note of how different his childhood friend looks, but it's not really clear if he's always liked her or if he just likes her more now because of how much more open she is. At the end of the day, that doesn't really matter, it just felt weird that there were moments where it felt like the story wanted to do more with what it had but just didn't have the real estate to fall through with it. Honestly, it's a solid read that pretty much gets the job done if you happen to come across it, but I also don't think it really stands out enough that you need to go out of your way to find it.