To start off this review on a more positive note, I'll list off the things I actually liked about Hanako to Guuwa no Teller. The characters are almost likeable for what they are. I wouldn't say that any of them are especially memorable or that I cared about them all that much, but there were a few cute moments and gags with them that I found somewhat endearing, if rushed and not well executed. The characters all fall into fairly tried-and-true archetypes: Asou is the eccentric detective, Kanae is the audience surrogate / damsel-in-distress, and Hanako is the hypercompetent kid sidekick. The whole "found family" dynamic with Asou and Kanae being Hanako's parental figures was sorta cute, even if it wasn't developed enough to have any kind of impact on me. Again I want to emphasize that the characters aren't anything special, but they are a tiny bit likeable for what they are. Likewise, the art is fine for what it is. Nothing that I would say is above average, but credit where credit is due I suppose.
As for the negatives.... everything else.
Now, I'm not typically one of those guys who gets especially angry over plot holes (as in I wouldn't willingly sit through a 2 hour video talking about the plot holes in the Last Jedi or anything), but Hanako to Guuwa no Teller lacks any kind of internal logic even in moment-to-moment storytelling. Characters will take bafflingly random actions to push the plot forward. Shit will happen without any justification. The whole concept of "allegories" (the ENTIRE PREMISE of this manga by the way) is poorly explained at best and completely nonsensical at worst.
If you want an example for the kind of storytelling you can expect to see in this manga, look no further than the first chapter.
Let's say that you're Daisuke Asou. You work as a supernatural detective, seemingly (for some reason) the only one in the country. One day, a terrified and exhausted young woman comes into your office. She tells you that she's being haunted by a ghost that will kill her the moment she falls asleep and as such she hasn't slept in days. You have a natural radar for ghosts, and you can tell at a moment's notice that she is telling the truth. As a supernatural detective, this is the exact kind of case you solve on a regular basis. Being the hypercompetent detective that you are, do you:
A.) Give the woman a place to sleep and tell her that you'll protect her from the ghost.
B.) Calmly explain to the woman what's going on and offer an explanation as to how you can help her.
C.) Have your hypercompetent kid sidekick use one of her anti-ghost computer programs and delete the ghost by traveling into her mind (yes they do this later on)
D.) Let the woman go back home, attempt to call her several minutes later, realize that she fell asleep, get on your moped and rush over there, break open her door, pull out a gun and kill the ghost by shooting it. Also keep in mind that your kid assistant can literally teleport and is completely immortal, but she doesn't go over there to wake the woman up to help her until the exact second when the ghost nearly kills her.
If you picked D, you would be correct!
The manga is FILLED with this kind of storytelling. For a four-volume long manga, it's genuinely impressive how many plot holes and inconsistencies Esuno managed to put in there. EVERY chapter has shit like this, whether that be by contradicting information set up earlier or by having the characters make extremely stupid and needlessly convoluted actions without any sort of justification.
For another example off the top of my head, there's a major plot point in the latter half of the series where Hanako is cut off from having any sort of contact with Kanae by having her cell phone destroyed. Except that Hanako's entire thing is that she can teleport through toilets and we see her teleport to Kanae's apartment in the first chapter, begging the question as to why she doesn't just teleport to Kanae's apartment and talk to her in person. Or hell, the whole story kicks off with Hanako had contacting Kanae through internet chatrooms, but she isn't able to do it again for some reason? Speaking of Hanako, she's established in chapter 7 to be incapable of moving beyond a certain distance from a toilet (seems to be 10 to 20 meters judging by the panel), except 2 chapters prior we literally saw her at a movie theater. And later in chapter 17 we see her taking a hike with Asou and Kanae through the woods without a toilet anywhere in sight.
I can go on and on and ON listing every single plot hole and inconsistency in this manga. Did this shit even have an editor?
Arguably the single worst bit of storytelling from this manga is that I can't even tell you what an allegory is. Based on the way they describe it, I think they're supposed to be urban legends that come into reality if enough people believe in them. Except that the story is wildly inconsistent about it. At some points, allegories are treated as manifestations of your inner psyche (for example, a child whose parents are getting divorced has an allegory that's making her go blind because she doesn't "want to see" the world around her). But at other points allegories behave as standard monsters that try to hunt you down. But then at another point allegories are treated as literal ghosts (souls of the deceased) that for some reason need to act out the steps of an urban legend. But then at the manga's finale you have a guy somehow being able to do anything he wants by writing it in a book (not even a magical book. Just an ordinary diary) because it's a "story" even though no one had read it, but then it turns out that HE'S actually an allegory who the heroes defeat by saying "No u" or something? Or at one point Asuo makes a big deal about how they can only "solve" an allegory if they figure out the victim's personal problem that's causing it, except that he had solved several allegories before that point by just shooting them with a gun?
The whole "ghost detectives" thing is a fairly straightforward premise, yet Esuno managed to fuck it up THIS bad. It's legitimately impressive.
Conclusion
In conclusion... read Dark Gathering instead. Hanako to Guuwa no Teller and Dark Gathering both deal with mostly episodic ghost hunting stuff and have extremely similar cast setups. Main team of 1 little girl, 1 adult man, and 1 adult woman. The little girl is a hypercompetent ghost hunter and the two adults have a romance subplot going on between them. Except the ghosts are actually consistent in how they behave, the writing isn't filled with inconsistencies and plot holes, and the characters are actually fun and charismatic. If you're a fan of this manga and somehow managed to read to the end of this review, I feel like you would probably enjoy Dark Gathering a lot more.
I can't in good conscience give this manga anything above a 1/10. I don't HATE it, but it's so bafflingly incompetent that giving it anything above a 1/10 feels like I'm being too generous. It's a trainwreck. A trainwreck that's fun to watch and pull apart, but a trainwreck nevertheless.
