Hanabusa Motonori served as a bushō during the Azuchi-Momoyama and early Edo periods.  His family was a member of the Ashikaga clan, based in the Hanabusa neighborhood of the Kuji District in Hitachi Province.  The Hanabusa were a branch of the Ueno clan.

Born in 1580, Motonori was the eldest son of Hanabusa Motohide.  In the autumn of 1600, Motonori met with Tokugawa Ieyasu.

In 1614, at the Winter Siege of Ōsaka, Motonori decapitated an enemy at Noda-Fukushima.  Motonori made further contributions in the Summer Siege of Ōsaka in the spring of 1615.

In 1617, Motonori inherited the role as head of the clan and the territory of his father.  From the inherited landholdings, he allocated a fief of 1,000 koku to his younger brother, Motonao and ruled the balance of the territory with a fief of 7,220 koku in Takamatsu in Bitchū Province.  Following the death of Shimazu Yoshihiro in 1619,  Motonori acted upon orders of the bakufu to deliver 1,000 pieces of silver as condolences from the Edo bakufu to the Shimazu family.

Motonori died in 1620 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Mototoshi.