Mar 20, 2024
"Mysteries, Maidens, And Mysterious Disappearances" is your typical supernatural manga with a very misleading title in the "Mysteries" regards. That's not to say this isn't an enjoyable read by any means, I would definitely recommend it if you're into supernatural stuff. But if you're going into this manga with certain expectations for it being labeled as a "Mystery Seinen", you might come out very disappointed. Unlike what the title of the manga suggests, this manga is a supernatural thriller first and foremost, it's definitely NOT a mystery.
This manga follows a monster of the week format where each "oddity" has its own arc, each arc usually
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spanning 3-12 chapters. Arcs on their own I would describe as a crazy supernatural rollercoaster ride. Things start off peaceful, our characters slowly start to uncover strange occurrences or disappearances, characters start asking questions when BAM! Shit suddenly hits the fan, our characters are usually put in a life or death scenario against some sort of curse, blah blah blah they find the solution to dispel the curse explained via some sort of real-life urban/historical legend, and our characters make it out alive by the skin of their teeth. What I just described is the oversimplified general formula for each arc in this manga. If that sounds like a good time to you (which it is), go give it a read. My main gripe is how they present the "mystery", more specifically the explanatory monologue that's included at the climax to explain every oddity.
I said earlier that this manga is not a mystery manga, this is because Mystery fiction by definition is when the nature of an event is initially unexplainable, but the mystery is eventually solved using logical deduction from information presented to the reader. Why am I saying all this? To put it blunt, the explanations for countering the oddities make no fucking sense. I assumed that this was contributed to my lack of knowledge on the topic of Eastern urban/historical legends, but even after reading the general description of the legend that the manga provides AND THEN putting in the extra effort in doing my own research on the legends online, the solutions and explanations to every mystery, even after knowing the full context, are not at all convincing. This makes the counters that the characters use to address the oddity less so the result of a logical deduction and more like a random asspull solution drawn from a hat. I also refuse to believe that this manga is attempting to build any semblance of a magic system because the counters for each oddity are all completely different and unconnected to each other, so no laws or rules to the magic could ever be established and thus it will never make any sense to the reader. They say 'You always fear what you don't understand' and yet somehow they've managed to "explain" the oddities in such a way that removes any and all built up tension for the oddity while at the same time leaving me completely in the dark in what the actual fuck is going on. After a certain point, I gave up on trying to make any sense of it and just started accepting the things that were happening for what they were, much like the characters in the story. The bullshit solutions makes the climax to each and every arc feel underwhelming and unearned. The "solved mysteries" will never be re-explained in any way, shape, or form that makes any lick of sense. It fails in every aspect in regards to being a mystery because instead of encouraging curiosity, it kills curiosity with such unrewarding answers.
Enough of my yapping, for additional comments: The main character is hot AF (they show uncensored boobs in case that's a sell for you), the exclamation point "!" traffic signs motif used to represent oddities is such a cool and striking visual, and also 𝒆𝒈𝒈𝒔.
Give it a read if you like your wacky supernatural manga, it's genuinely a fun read despite my rageful tangent. If anything I suppose it's bullshit solutions means that you can never guess what's going to happen next. Don't read it expecting to use your brain, its pretty stupid. I'll admit it's the cool kind of stupid, but still stupid.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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