Draw a Circle: It's the Earth!

Hello guys! As you probably know I’m a huge fan of Anime and Manga, Japanese animated productions and comics. Those guys seem like they are really creative, and nowadays you can find a manga about anything – trust me, anything. Same thing with anime.

A few years ago a friend showed to me an interesting series and now I want to talk to you a little about it. What do you think if I tell you that a guy created a webcomic about countries? And, because its popularity, this webcomic was adapted as a manga? AND, after that, as an anime series? I’m not kidding. There is a series about countries.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased of showing you the wonderful world of Hetalia: Axis Powers!

Why should I post this here? That’s really simple, actually. This series, Hetalia, it’s absolutely full of stereotypes!

Hetalia (ヘタリア) is a portmanteau combining hetare (へタレ, Japanese for "unreliable") and Italia (イタリア) (Saved from Hetalia Archives).

The series presents an allegorical interpretation of political and historic events, particularly of the World War II era, in which the various countries are represented by human-like characters. (Hetalia Archives)

That means that every single country that appears on the series has their own personality, physical characteristics, slang and so much other interesting things!

… Okay, I have to be honest. My reactions the first time I heard about Hetalia were something like “OMG, what is this? Can this be real? How can be this so popular? Is an anime about History, and people usually don’t like History. How many chapters does it have? What?! 26?! Fine, 26 chapters of 5 minutes of duration each one… What. Two seasons, and… a movie? Are you kidding me?”

That was on 2010. After watching the first chapter my opinion… changed.
Like a lot.
And now I’m a huge fan of the series.

Let’s check the characters who appear on in the series, but only the names of the countries that appears on the series, not on the manga an webcomic because, trust me, they are a lot. I also will hyperlinked the countries to images/gifs of their characters, so in that way you’ll see them and think about if they’re how you imagined or not.

Axis Powers: North Italy (also called Veneziano), Germany and Japan.
 

Allied Forces: America (USA), England (who represents all the UK in the series), France, China, Russia and Canada.
 

West Europe: Belgium and Netherlands.
 

Central Europe: Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Poland, Prussia, Romania, Switzerland.
 

Eastern Europe: Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine.
 

Nordic Europe: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
 

Mediterranean Europe: Greece, Turkey, South Italy (also called Romano) and Spain.
 

Africa: Egypt and Seychelles.
 

Asia: Hong Kong, South Korea, India and Thailand.
 

Oceania: Australia and New Zealand.
 

The Caribbean: Cuba.
 

Micronations (yeah, they exist too!): Sealand, Seborga and Wy.
 

Ancient Empires: Ancient Rome and HolyRoman Empire.
 

Historical Figures: Jeanne D’Arc (France), Frederick the Great (Prussia) and Napoleon Bonaparte (France).

Can you imagine how chaotically funny could be a History class thinking in the characters instead of the countries? Or how painful could be studying historical events like the Independence of the United States if you think in the feelings of the characters as a representation of their countries? Or how important were figures like Jeanne D’Arc or Frederick the Great if you think about the relation that they had with the characters that represent their countries? Or maybe how scaring and hard was the process of becoming into a big and strong nation if you saw how the Ancient Empires just disappeared? Learning History is absolutely different if you’ve watched Hetalia.

If you want to watch this anime, I’ll put the links of the seasons here.

Hetalia:Axis Powers. 

Hetalia World Series.
Hetalia: The Beautiful World.

I really hope you’d enjoyed this entry, and if you have any comments I’ll be really happy of reading them, answering questions and that kind of things, especially about the stereotypes of this anime and the countries who are represented on it. Had you heard about all those countries before? Because I hadn’t heard about Seychelles, Liechtenstein or the Baltic States until I watched the series.

That's all! Have fun this weekend and, remember, it doesn't matter if you have a discussion with someone. It could never be worst that the relation between France and England.