First Impression: Mysterious Disappearances

An off-kilter lullaby and grainy image make for an ominous opening scene as a young girl prepares for the day in what seems to be the dormitory of an abandoned underground bunker. She bids adieu to an older boy, hunched over a desk. Cut to a close-up of a blue jean-clad butt. Then to an ecchi-tastic opening sequence. Ogawa (she of the blue jeans—though after seeing her full figure, the blue jeans are not, it turns out, the focal point of her character design…ahem), and Adashino, the boy from the bunker, work at a bookstore that is so bad at selling books that they end up with more stock by the end of the day than what they began with. Ogawa takes the day’s extra book home and reads it beneath the moonlight as she celebrates her 28th birthday alone. Later, in a kombini, Ogawa suddenly starts to shrink and before she knows it, she’s a child again and her clothes are falling off. She runs home, where she stays for the next week, feverishly writing novels because that’s what children do. Eventually, the bookstore manager notices her absence, and Adashino goes to investigate. He finds her in an alley, late at night, and explains what has happened to her: it was a cursed book! And now her voluptuous adult body has been shoved into a child-sized body and all the extra guts and muscles and fluids and…etc are on the verge of bursting out and will kill her. (Cue blood gushing from her eyes, nose and mouth.) What must she do to be saved? Well, he repeats three times, the curse only works on virgin maidens, so… you read another section of the book out loud under the moonlight, silly! Haha. Ogawa recites the passage and reverts to adult size, then decides she prefers to be a child, brimming with creativity, and proceeds to switch back and forth as she evades Adashino who is determined to get his hands on the book. Eventually, she quits when Adashino says he likes her writing. Simples!

“The ecchi is strong with this one,” noted Twwk, after bailing about 90 seconds in. “I’m not it,” intoned KhakiBlueSocks a mere 60 seconds in, dodging the game of tag we BtT writers sometimes have to play to get a premiere reviewed. And so, down two men, I stepped forward: “I shall take the bullet for you, Team!” It can’t be that bad, I thought. Ho boy. I thought wrong. Here’s the thing though: this isn’t your standard harem ecchi with (unrealistic) flirty girls and bouncing/shiny body parts. Apart from the opening credit sequence and a brief shower shot, there isn’t any nudity or skimpy clothing. But what’s here is more disturbing: the pedophilic innuendo. It does not bode well. Even if one were to overlook the danger signs of child Ogawa’s disappearing clothing, this is a mess of an episode, with the pacing all over the place, dank dialogue, inconsistent characterization (already!), and an utterly uncompelling “hero” in Adashino. I liked the opening thirty seconds or so, with the ominous music and urban legends feel to it, and the idea of a chase sequence with one character leveraging a changing body size is kinda cool (minus the constant clothing gag), but this one has way too many red flags for me to consider a second episode. Also, no one disappeared. Come on!

Mysterious Disappearances is streaming on Crunchyroll.

claire
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3 thoughts on “First Impression: Mysterious Disappearances”

  2. Oh, that’s too bad. Considering the title, I was kind of hoping this might be a gritty detective anime about finding missing people. Or maybe a paranormal anime about high school friends looking for missing classmates. Or maybe a mystery about a rural small town in which people disappear without a trace.

    1. Right?!? 🤣 I had been hoping the same until the OP flashed on screen and I realised those hopes were misplaced 😅

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