Hetalia


What even is Hetalia?!




Hetalia is an anime/manga/webcomic/whatever about the personifications of countries.
It uses satire and light-hearted comedy to reinterpret well-known historical and political events, or just general cultural comparisons, in an amusing way.
There's a lot of variety in the episodes, and it's super cool.

I like that it adds a 'human touch' to history.

The truth is I'm starting to really dislike anime now that I'm older. I don't watch any new ones, I just rewatch good old ones. But even some stuff I liked back then, I don't like anymore. But I will never stop loving Hetalia. The most enjoyable fandom I've ever been in. And the fanbase is women only. Based.



Characters

North Italy


Human name: Feliciano Vargas
Personality: Energetic, carefree, sweet
Loves: Pasta, gelato, cooking, siestas,
painting, singing
Weird fact: His right nipple is revealed to represent Corsica. (The hell..?)




Germany



Human name: Ludwig
Personality: Serious, bureaucratic, efficient, kind
Loves: Baking, beer, reading, walking his dogs





Japan


Human name: Kiku Honda
Personality: Shy, quiet, reclusive, hard-working
Likes: Photography, food, animals (especially cats), soft & fluffy things
Dislikes: People being in his personal space, cockroaches
Random facts: Used to be a hikikomori. He sees the world as an RPG (me too man, me too).



Prussia


Human name: Gilbert Beilschmidt
Personality: Arrogant, loyal
Loves: HIMSELF, his little brother Germany,
cute things, eating, sleeping, fighting,
journalling and blogging




America <3


Human name: Alfred F. Jones
Personality: Cheerful, energetic, childlike, egotistical
Loves: Superheroes, freedom, sports, games, making movies,
burgers and other junk food
Random facts: He has super strength.
He has an alien friend called Tony.
His glasses represent Texas. He's also my husband.



England


Human name: Arthur Kirkland
Personality: Irritable, cynical, sharp-tongued, tsundere
Loves: Tea, magic, embroidery, literature, rock music
Bad at: Cooking, swimming, holding his liquor
Random facts: Had a lot of phases. He was a pirate once. Had a punk phase in his younger days, and got a tattoo on his butt. Nowadays, he considers himself a gentleman.



France


Human name: Francis Bonnefoy
Personality: Romantic, charming, carefree
Loves: Fashion design, sketching, singing, wandering
around the art museums and fashion boutiques of Paris
Dislikes: England




Russia


Human name: Ivan Braginsky
Personality: Intimidating, has the innocence
and cruelty of a child, insane
Loves: Sunflowers and vodka
Dislikes: The cold, his younger sister Belarus





Canada


Human name: Matthew Williams
Personality: Quiet, shy, passive aggressive
Loves: Maple syrup
Dislikes: Fighting, being mistaken for his brother
America





Spain


Human name: Antonio Fernandez Carriedo
Personality: Optimistic, passionate, cheerful, but
sometimes insensitive and clueless
Loves: Playing guitar, tomatoes, hanging out with his friends





There are waaay more than just these guys, but I have a life to live.


My Favourite Characters



Prussia was my favourite back in the day, since he was the character I related the most to when I was younger. Still love him, but my favourite nowadays? He is BEAUTY, he is GRACE he is MISTER UNITED STATES!!!! England too. They have more screentime than Prussia ever did, so more to enjoy.
Their histories are expansive and very interesting.

I love American history, music, movies and fashion from the 1920's all the way to the 2000's. It's very charming.

I love everything about the 60's, and the punk scene from the 70's and it was all about England back then. I also love pirates, and Victorian England. I've watched British shows growing up and I've been to England thrice. (It's right next door, so no big deal.) And combining all that stuff with Hetalia, just makes them 1000000x more awesome.

How I got into it

Major cringe alert lol. But I have to write this shit down SOMEWHERE. I mean, imagine I get into a car accident and end up having amnesia, or if I get old and start getting dementia... I need to preserve the memories somehow. "Then shove it all in a diary!!!" .....Ever heard of HOUSEFIRES? Jeez.

I had heard about Hetalia before, but only got into it in 2015. The basic story is, I was reading Adventure Time fanfiction one day (kill me), and ended up finding a Hetalia crackfic. I don't exactly know what made me start reading it, but it turned out to be fucking hilarious. I wanted to know more about the characters, so I figured I should watch the anime too. Blazed through it pretty fast too, since the episodes were less than 5 minutes long.

I've always liked history and learning about other cultures, now paste that onto smokin' hot anime guys. What a concoction.

Changed my life. No joke.
Within a few weeks, I deleted all my posts on Instagram, (which were just of other animes and emo bands) and turned it into a Prussia roleplay account. I chose him because we had the exact same personality, so it didn't matter that I'd never roleplayed before, because I just had to act like myself, EZ. Started a huge Hetalia roleplaying groupchat on Instagram and Kik, and made some of my best friends during that time. Those were some of the happiest times of my life.

Fanfiction

I read a lot of Hetalia fanfiction but my favourite author was George DeValier. He was pretty well-known in the fandom, for his series of stories called the VeraVerse.

The Veraverse is a Hetalia World War II AU, of fics involving different characters, all living within the same time period and all interconnected in some way.
It's called the VeraVerse, since each story in the series is named after and loosely based on the lyrics of a wartime song sung by Vera Lynn. This series is "about the power of love over war, and finding something beautiful in the midst of something ugly and evil."

This wasn't some half-assed fanfiction written by an illiterate 13 year old. It was masterful, god-tier writing. They were so amazing that they could be published as novels. It's not even necessary to know anything about Hetalia to read his work.

My favourite one was 'Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart'.


There were some other really good fanfiction I used to read but can't remember the names of. I can only vaguely remember the plots.

  • [Human AU] England, Spain, Portugal and France as pirates. It was FUCKING AWESOME.
  • [Human AU] Prussia balancing life between being highschool students and a vigilante superhero in New York, in a world where people with superheroes are hated.
  • [Human AU] Romano as a mermaid...
  • [Human AU] Russia goes all crazy yandere for America

Games



There are a few official Hetalia games. The most popular being Gakuen Hetalia, a visual novel released on PSP and Nintendo DS.

But maaaaaaaaaaan, there are HUNDREDS (not kidding) of fanmade games, mostly made on RPG Makers. I haven't even checked out all of them, but my absolute favourites back in the day were the HetaOni and the Dreamtalia games.
HetaOni was based off of Ao Oni, of course. And no offense, but it was WAY better than it too. The story was more complex. Seeing my favourite characters suffering and being killed off one by one was awesome, in a strange way. That crazy timeloop plot, wow. Too bad that it was never finished though.



Random shit

I remember saving these thingies that the creator of Hetalia posted to show how he draws the characters. Not that I'd ever need em, because I can't draw for shit... But because I thought they were funny.