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"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 ... 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.

For those who've read/watched Call of the Night (aka Yofukashi no Uta), this manga is literally just that same plot done again but swap the vampires with ogres, put it in a college setting, spice it up with some yuri, throw in a stupidly vast showcase of different alcoholic beverages for good measure and you got yourself 'Alcohol and Ogre-girls'. All jokes aside this manga is nothing less than adorable.

The dynamic between the two lead girls is executed brilliantly. They're both plunged into the ironic power dynamic where Hinata Ibuki, the all-powerful ogre-girl and social butterfly, is solely reliant upon Naori Shida to provide her ... sustenance, who's a weak human and is extremely introverted in comparison. In this world, ogres can only feed off of alcohol that is willingly offered by a human, so Naori who happens to be an alcohol otaku, appoints herself to keep Hinata's identity as an ogre a secret whilst acting as her personal bartender. The story puts a lot of focus on subverting the initial presumptions one could make on these two characters. This means giving a lot of moments for Naori the meek human, to show off her courage and on the contrary moments for Hinata the seemingly invincible ogre-girl to reveal her insecurities. This creates a much appreciated depth to both characters and their dynamic of the two of them relying on one another in order to improve themselves is just perfect.

At first, the alcohol aspects felt like a lazy tack on, I for one thought that the plot didn't need alcohol to be the gimmick and that just having ogre-girls sufficed on its own, but strangely enough the random remarks about any given alcoholic beverage of a chapter becomes something to be expected and thus, something to look forward to. It's almost like the checkpoint in a chapter and seeing the characters expressive reactions to drinking them is always cute to see and the love for the hobby from the characters is infectious.

My only major complaint would be that new characters are just coming and going. As of writing, we're getting introduced to a lot of new characters in a pretty short span of chapters. Before the manga has the chance to flesh any of these new characters out, they're suddenly sidelined for newer characters to take their place; the story feels like it lost a lot of its focus because of this. The story on its own is not bad but its nothing to write home about either. It started off as pretty basic but it's slowly unraveling into something more interesting as the plot becomes more ambitious with new plot points and new characters piling up on each other. The manga is still in its early infancy as a series so I'd still give it the benefit of the doubt.

To add additional remarks, the art style is very soft and pleasing to look at while still managing to still look dramatic when it needs to be. However, for a series where alcohol is a prominent theme and is in the name, I expected the drinks to be (for the lack of a better word) more animated in the panels. Most of them are just a solid colour of liquid with a single condiment added which I think is kinda underwhelming, they definitely could've been presented to look a lot more visually appealing. Overall, 'Alcohol and Ogre-girls' is an enjoyable read. It has some mature themes told in a rather wholesome and light-hearted tone (For the most part). I'd recommend anyone whose even remotely interested to go give it a shot* (pun was not intended).