Cliche reigns supreme here, to this story's detriment. If you've been a manga/anime patron for a little while, you already know all the notes it'll hit. Episodic structure. Cutesy normal girl who gets helped by alternately cool and goofy protagonist and gloms onto him like a puppy for the rest of the storyline. Lots of ambivalent fussing about the safety of aforementioned normal hench-girl, who of course has no qualms about endangering her own safety so she can fill out her checklist of stock character traits. The list goes on. If you haven't read something like it already, you will before long.

Cliche can be okay, but it doesn't have a lot of strong notes to offset it. The art style is kind of chunky and bland without a lot of detail (though the action is nice and clean and easy to follow, which is a plus). There's some competent spooky imagery early in the story, with a little atmosphere. It doesn't really last past roughly the first volume, and any time the atmosphere does build up, the emphasis on action undermines it fast. Consequently, it doesn't really work as a horror story OR a detective story, but just falls under a sort of bland shounen umbrella. The urban legend theme is cool and makes for a good structure, but it's employed in a haphazard, sloppy, and poorly explained way that introduces a lot of plot holes, some of which get answers that only raise more questions. The characters themselves are poorly defined, and don't really have cleanly defined personalities beyond a few inconsistently-utilized little traits that get stuck to them like badges and often forgotten. The story itself has so little throughline that the final plot arc just sort of smashes into it like a freight train out of nowhere, with no real prelude other than establishing a certain character involved exists. Nothing about them, or what they want, of course. The entirety of the setup for the final act is, "Hey, this character happens to exist!"

Overall, it's harmless and kind of cute from time to time, and offers a rare few spooks, but it's hampered by paint-by-numbers story and characterization, without doing anything to mix up the cliches it leans on.

... Last updated on April 23rd, 2015, 2:52am

this could be better, but if you just let go of any expectation, this is quite good. just like mirai nikki, this manga main pull is the surrealistic horror and some nice (but too convenient) twists. the characters are not well developed, with very limited range of emotions, the character background are not well explained, the ending are too cheesy. and the art a bit too bulky.

still, its not a bad horror manga if you just forget about the wooden characters and some deus ex machina.

This works better as a horror series - or may be as a modern fantasy series using elements of folk/urban legends. It is not really a detective story. Just remember that and you wouldn't be disappointed.

This manga was interesting to read because I never knew Japanese folkore would be so interesting to read and learn about. The story and the characters went very well together and you can't help but chear for the romance that is invovled. Good manga overrall for getting me interested in Japanese folkore.

love the folklore of japan
it is kinda scary.

I always read those extra
pages about there folklore
it makes my skin hair stand straight
a little chilly and somehow I wanna
close my eyes...

specially the killer under the bed
it has connection to a real crime
that no one knows the killer.

imagine while you're sleeping
the killer is below you it is like
few centimeter close to you...

surely this is not really complete
since there is the guy who is talking
to the last enemy...

a sign of mystery!

This series started out with a promising story of a detective investigating urban legends and the first chapter was pretty cool. That's probably the only thing i can say about this manga. It tricks u into thinking u will be reading an epic story of the paranormal. What it actually delivers is a confusing story that made no sense and had the most plot holes i had ever seen. The same can be said about the authors second work, Mirai Nikki. Both seem promising and build suspense only to let u down by giving the most ridiculous solutions that make absolutely no sense. Only read is u like Urban legends, but dont even try to pat attention to the plot because it makes no sense at all.

since there is only one person scanlating and there is only one chapter so far unfortunately, from what I've read "Hanako..." looks like a promising and addicting series. I just hope that more people will start working on this series...