When Kyoichi Utsume was a child, he and his younger brother disappeared. He somehow managed to return, but his little brother did not. Ever since then, he's been obsessed with death and kamikakushi, mysterious beings that are said to spirit people away.

Rumors start flying at Utsume's high school that he, the guy who supposedly doesn't believe in love and romance, has found a girlfriend and is introducing her to everyone. Utsume's friends in the Literature Club discover that the rumors are true when he brings Ayame, a cute but oddly easy to overlook girl, to meet them. Ryoko and Takemi, two members of the Literature Club, decide to follow the couple and come back with gaps in their memories and a strange story of visiting a terrifying other world. Since there's no longer any sign of either Utsume or Ayame, it looks like Ryoko and Takemi's story may be true. Can the members of the Literature Club somehow retrieve their friend from the other world? Will he even want to come back?

My first impression of this was that it was better than I expected. The translation was relatively smooth, and the lack of the usual anime cliches in the story was a welcome change of pace from many of the more recently published light novels I've read (no boob jokes! no harems composed of several well-worn character types!).

Utsume made me roll my eyes, with the way the other characters referred to him as "Dark Prince" and "Your Majesty." Utsume's personality was cold and didn't seem like the sort that would attract a bunch of devoted friends. It helped, a little, that Coda spent time establishing why the other members of the Literature Club cared so much about him. Toshiya had been around when Utsume and his brother originally disappeared and had seen the changes in him after he'd come back. Utsume had helped Ryoko through an exam-inspired panic attack. Aki was a prickly girl who recognized parts of herself in Utsume. Of all of the characters, Aki was probably my most favorite, but I wish she hadn't been quite so focused on Utsume.

The teens' efforts to rescue their friend took them in a couple different directions, and I'm hoping at least some of that comes up in the second book as well. One half of the Literature Club talked to a mysterious magician named Jinno, while the other half talked to a man who was essentially part of Japan's version of the men in black.

The books' ending was confusing. What happened? It seemed like one particular character had been shot, but then for some reason they were fine. Why did another one of the characters disappear? Was that Ayame's influence?

If it weren't for the confusing ending, I think I might have liked this a bit more. I'm still looking forward to reading the second book in the series, at any rate.

Extras:

A short afterword written by the author, an excerpt from the next book, and an excerpt from the manga based on this book.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

Honestly the plot is awesome since it's about creatures of urban myths and folklore and how they connect to each other globally and 'what if..."However it's when the characters are added to the mix that the book flops. All the men get to do manly things while all the women are regulated to the side and of course at the climax.... well let's just say what happens to the women is par for the course in sexism 101. ( )

I’m fascinated by Japanese horror and the supernatural, in that I find it interesting while it completely wigs me out at the same time. There’s such a vast difference in the cultural mores between the East and West concerning death or the Fair Folk or Things Which Mankind Is Not Meant to Know.

Missing is a decent light novel, and it’s got a very creepy story at the core. While the characters do fit into different stereotypes—the ice queen, the stupid best friend, the tall and quiet guys—they still manage to feel like defined characters in their own right. I definitely got the sense that any one of these characters would be willing to risk their lives for each other. Out of the five, the ones who would probably need more development overall were Ryoko and Utsume. I liked Ryoko, she fits very well into the cute girl role, but she never really gets beyond that characterization. I feel like there’s more to her that we just haven’t seen yet. Utsume’s mysterious past—specifically, his being spirited away by kami-kakushi as a little boy and then later at the start of the novel—is at the center of the plot. And while it’d be easy to say that we don’t get to see much of him, because he disappears for a good chunk of the novel, he really doesn’t do much in what we do see of him or in flashbacks. All Utsume does whenever he’s onscreen is act dark and mysterious and pontificate philosophically. On the other hand, the other three members of the Literature Club—Takemi, Aki and Toshiya—feel more developed. We get more of their backstories, and they actually grow a little throughout the story.

However, I’d have to say that the antagonist, Ayame, was my favorite. Again, she does fall into a stereotype role (tragic ghost figure), but her actions toward Utsume feel more tragic. There’s a part when Ryoko notices the look on Ayame’s face and mentions that you can’t help but feel sorry for her. Yet, whenever she has to be creepy, good Lord, is she creepy.

There are two major problems that I had with the book as a whole. For one thing, minor characters are introduced with a lot of build-up and explanation about what they do, but don’t contribute further to the plot after their role is finished. I can understand this in the case of Kijou (although I have my theories on that), but Jinno and Yomiko disappear after talking with Takemi and Toshiya.

My second problem is the translation. For the record, I’ve only read the English translation, as I don’t have the original and I can’t read Japanese writing to begin with. (I kinda know the sentence structure, but even then it’s extremely loose.) That said, the translation doesn’t really flow well. The prose is choppy and sounds weird at times, and there’s odd bits of dialogue that doesn’t fit with many of the characters. It’s not written well, and really takes away from a lot of the book—I’ve read other translated works, and the prose and dialogue actually flows a lot better. I’m not sure if this was fixed in later volumes—it’s a thirteen-book series; however, with Tokyopop’s current status, I doubt that any of the other volumes made it to print.

Overall, it’s a decent read, and I am interested in reading more. Unfortunately, only volume 2 ever made it stateside, so I’m pretty much stuck with the first one. In any case, it’s a quick and effective read that manages to be interesting and scary.
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If only all YA titles were this good.

The Missing series starts out as a fairly standard "school ghost story," only to become progressively weirder as the cast of characters grows beyond the five that are originally introduced. Coda uses a very imaginative and successful mix of Western mythos, Eastern mythos, magical realism and teen angst to keep a fairly straightforward story gripping. In the hands of a lesser author this could have easily been a mediocre "horror for teens" book. I'm glad it isn't. ( )