The story of Hanayama began in 1930 in Japan as a manufacturer of traditional and board games based on creativity and high quality standards. It became world famous in the 80s, when it began manufacturing the series Cast Puzzle.

はずすmeans "to break into pieces" in Japanese and ぱずる means "puzzle." Hanayama combined these two words into one はずる that means "the puzzle that breaks into pieces" (Huzzle).

The puzzles are categorized into six different difficulty levels, from easy (Level 1 – ★) to difficult (Level 6 – ★★★★★★).