Hetalia
Hetalia is a comedic, animated show depicting countries such as England, The United states , Germany , Italy and many more as humans based on common stereotypes or historical events, for example Italy being useless during the world wars and the character representing England being a horrible cook. While Hetalia is a satirical show it has received the expected backlash since it can be seen as discriminatory and disrespectful for obvious reasons, at one point in the 2000s there were petitions for it to be banned in South Korea.
Hetalia’s first episode released on the 24th of January 2009 after it was a one-shot comic written by Hidekaz Himaruya in July 2006. The animated series was most popular between 2009 and 2011, mainly when the show first came out. Its name originates from the Japanese word “useless” (hetare) and the word for “Italy” (Italia) which presents the initial focus on Italy’s character.
Hetalia: Axis Powers has multiple seasons, totalling up to 7 seasons. However it may seem long but the average episode is only around 5 minutes long, making it great for people with small attention spans.
While it is a show based off of countries, stereotype and the countries’ historical events it is not always historically accurate, especially considering it is a parody show and any factual information is usually watered down so it should not be taken seriously.
There are many characters in the series however they do not represent the countries leaders, they are their own people within the series. Additionally the characters do have their own names and they do not only go by the name of the country they represent, for example, England’s name is Arthur Kirkland, France’s is Franics Bonnefoy and Germany’s is Ludwig. Furthermore, not every country in the world is mentioned in the series and the show is quite focused more on the European countries such as France, Russia, Austria and even past countries that are not even around today such as Prussia.
