My previous car was a manual 89 V6 Acura Legend, and it got around 22mpg I believe. A little better than my 4runner, but not earth shattering. And it was quicker, lighter, more aerodynamic, had street tires, and geared much differently.
I've had my manual 92 v6 4wd 4runner has gotten as good as 21mpg in the 10 years I've had it, and averaged maybe 19.5 when I was commuting and going through a tank a week (300-340 miles, from 7500' down to 6800', up to 8900' and down to 4500', and then back). But I was only over 55-60 mph for maybe 4 miles once the route hit the freeway. This is with BFG AT's, and not too much extra weight in the truck.
OTOH, this "tank" was winter blend, with lots of short trips when cold. We've added a few gallons here and there for a while, and are finally doing a fill-up today (gas is up to 50 cents more a gallon here than over the hill, and I try not to support that). And it turned out my tires were on the low side, and I just fixed one of the brakes that was touching just a little bit on part of the rotation. We'll likely be looking at 12mpg, vs the worst ever in the past 10 years has been 13mpg.
(we're above 20% of the atmosphere, and I'm thinking the computer uses a default set of values until warmed up, which would mean on all of those short cold drives around town it's fuel/air mixture is completely screwed up)
If doing worse than 12-13mpg, or if getting that low even when driving conservatively on longer drives without a bunch of extra weight, then look into it. Air filter. Brakes. Lubbed wheel bearings. In the FSM (page EM-81 in my '92 set) there are 22 troubleshooting things to look into for Poor fuel economy in the V6. If still having trouble, start ticking through them, starting with the most probable (#1).