Hana-Chan and the shape of the world by Ryotaro Ueda

Hana is a precocious young girl who doesn’t usually do as she’s told and has many adventures with her friends. First, Hana prepares her emergency “rations” of choco-puffs, which she leaves at her school. When a typhoon hits her town, she takes her cat down to her school to retrieve the rations in the storm. In another adventure, Hana and her friend sit in an abandoned VW Bug, when a dam breaks and carries them downstream to the sea. Later, Hana gets stuck in a hammock and her friends have to get her out before a corporation, bent on reclaiming some derelict fields, torch the whole place and Hana along with it.  

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This compilation of short stories should really be named “The Misadventures of Hana-Chan,” because she keeps getting into dire situations and has to get out of them by some miracle or through the ingenuity of her friends. There is a lot of surrealism in the storyline and the art, which you can see on the cover with the cat with non-symmetrical eyes, and there are some interesting proportions on the characters.  The stories were a little entertaining but mostly, they seem to be an exercise in surrealism. On the surface, these stories could be appealing to younger audiences, but the strangeness and lack of closure to any of the stories might just confuse younger readers.

Sara’s Rating: 6/10
Suitability Level: Grades 5-12

This review was made possible with a digital reader copy from the publisher through Net Galley.

Publisher: Yen Press
Publication Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 9781975319861 (Paperback)

​Tags: Rating: 6/10, Suitability: Elementary School, Suitability: Middle School, Suitability: High School, Manga, Surrealism, Humor, Yen Press