Trying to balance school, work, social life, and personal care all at once like

Is there are real evidence that Italy may have forgotten aspects of his childhood rather than hints and your beloved metaphors? I’m just teasing, love your blog :DD

😀

I’ve been looking at this panel a lot lately [x].

It’s not just “I knew you when you were this little!”

Italy’s shocked by news of his old height. Also, why is Hungary telling him that she was married to Austria when all three of them lived in the same house for a substantial period of time?

Do you think you could do a guide on how the nations live their day-to-day lives? The impression I get from the bits you’ve talked about is that they’re not all that fancy. Is that true?

It depends what you’re talking about. In terms of class, the
nations aren’t high-end or anything. However, some nations live more lavishly
than others.

Hmmm. I think it’d be more helpful to construct a guide that
goes over all aspects of their lives including work/school, class, and their
interpersonal lives. Post coming up tonight!

*Trigger warning: Please DO NOT READ
THIS if you are sensitive to mentions of sexual assault.

Yes [x].

Sexual
assault and groping are prevalent up until around 2010. I’ve warned of this before
and plan to make a master post with a guide that includes trigger warnings for
certain topics. It’s painful to go through certain strips, but I have to brace
myself to jot down canon information. What’s always disturbed me is that in the
holiday events where most of these take place, fans are actually requesting
these scenes and are encouraging them.

Younger people
who are acclimatized to the more hyperaware and conscious environment of today
wouldn’t know how common r**pe and m*****ing jokes were. People threw them
around as if they were hilarious, which is revolting and disheartening looking
back on it. In hindsight, the joke culture then permitted a lot of things that
wouldn’t fly now. I think it’s important to contextualize this and understand
that this type of shock humour may have raised eyebrows, but it wouldn’t have
raised the pitchforks and torches that it would today.

Ex: In my
middle school and elementary years, “r**pe face XD” and “ah that test totally r**ped*
me were normalized forms of humour (still exists, but not as common). You see
this trope in dated memes made by fans with characters like France, Austria,
Germany, and Prussia.

I have a
post talking about France’s old characterization that states my full stance on
the issue. The basic premise is that it’s just as harmful not to acknowledge
these old characterizations as it is to hold onto them and use them as evidence
and a reason to hate a certain character [x].

You can
acknowledge and condemn the old characterizations without having this affect
how you interpret and analyze their present characterizations.

I agree with you in that the
earlier characterizations were terrible. It was exaggerated and perverted shock
humour that can’t be justified or excused.

I understand completely why
characters can be tainted in the eyes of others, but it’s also common sense to
those who read the material to recognize that these characterizations are no
longer valid; the old tropes that defined them no longer do. They were much
cruder.

Holding onto them, to me, is
counterproductive. I’m not saying to not acknowledge them but rather I wish
that people could grasp at the idea that these characterizations are husks of
what they’ve evolved into now. If you’re going to find a reason to dislike a
character, it would be more useful to draw on present characterizations that
are actually relevant to their personality. By all means, condemn the harmful
tropes of old characterizations, but to criticize newer characterizations on
the basis of the former is a pretty shoddy justification in my opinion.

I genuinely hate those dumb “I ThOuGhT HeTaLiA wAs DeAd” comments. Its rude, un original, and plain immature.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Say it louder.

Unpacking further Misconceptions about Hetalia

In previous posts, I’ve already debunked the misconception that
Hetalia promotes fascist, racist, and imperialist narratives and linked both an
academic source and primary source materials from the manga [x] [x].

This post will unravel additional misconceptions that arise
when people 1) don’t read the manga and/or watch the anime 2) think the anime
is entirely representative of the manga, and 3) falsely think that the dub,
which has made some crudely offensive lines, is affiliated with Himaruya.

In no way am I advocating to wholeheartedly and blindly support
Himaruya, as he has made some culturally insensitive choices in the past—mistakes
of which he has clearly learned from in the following decade of content he has
produced.

Creators are capable of evolving from their mistakes, so to
hold them presently accountable for something that they did in the past is
childish and counterproductive. Outrage culture is the antithesis of growth; it’s
fueled by anger instead of reason and inhibits discussion rather than promotes
it.

On the other hand, what I am advocating for is that people
do their research and look into the series before hopping on the bandwagon to
hate Hetalia and make assumptions that have zero canon substantiation.

“The nations being ‘cute
and relatable’ is offensive.”

This would be a good argument if Hetalia’s tone intended for
serious discussion and historical accuracy.

It doesn’t.

Hetalia is a satire and a historical parody. Its entire
premise is stereotypes and making fun of them. Stereotypes aren’t always
accurate either, so to come to Hetalia expecting accuracy is to set yourself up
for disappointment. Stereotypes inherently implicate an outsider’s perspective.
You need to possess a certain humour for it and it isn’t meant for everyone.

Nonetheless, the series is oriented around poking fun at history
and at a deeper, more implicit level has an anti-war and anti-fascist agenda. The main genre is humour, so of course the nations are going to have
several comic gags, foolish blunders, and jokes. To expect otherwise is to again, mistakenly set yourself up for disappointment.

In working with a humour genre, Himaruya can’t cover certain
subjects, and, therefore, has to gloss over events. It’s not erasing history
nor is it trivializing the atrocities that occurred. The genre constrains what events
he can depict.

As mentioned before, there’s a stark difference between historical
situation and promoting a rotten ideology. Just because fascism and war are
depicted doesn’t inherently mean that it’s being glorified. What matters is how
the information is presented.

For example: People outside of Hetalia think that Nazism is
celebrated and that Germany is held up on a pedestal.

The real Germany that we see in the series is someone who is
morally opposed to annexing Austria but is forced to [x] . Remember that this is a
core theme of the series: nations are forced to follow their bosses’ orders [x] [x]. While unfavourable at times, this theme is understandably necessary for
avoiding the slippery slope where nations would be given more free will over such
matters.

Another strip alludes to the fact that should Germany
disobey his boss [Hitler] he could be imprisoned. Rather than the heroic, brave,
blindly patriotic, and invulnerable German man that would be depicted in propaganda,
we see the opposite in Hetalia [x] [x].

Germany is instead depicted as a tortured and worn man who
equates his daily life to torture. He claims that the pains of being a prisoner
of war is a mere mosquito bite in comparison.

Tell me, in what way is this promoting fascism and Nazi
Germany?

Colonialism:

Just like Hetalia mocks fascism, it also mocks sentiments of
colonialism.

Imagery is used to reduce colonizing nations to mere children
having squabbles. Their conquests aren’t glorified. They’re instead made to
appear foolish, ridiculous, and immature. France and England’s constant bickering
in the context of their conquests best highlights how colonialism is undermined
in the series [x].

Hetalia doesn’t erase the many planes of genocide that the indigenous
populations experienced at the hands of colonial powers. The humour genre restricts
what can be depicted, so it instead frames its focus on belittling the idea of
colonization by undermining historical narratives that have asserted the false
and non-existent racial superiority of these powers.

Ex: The nations
building holiday homes in America is a deliberate euphemism for the actual
practice of colonization.

Lastly, I have to point out that the criticism that America’s
personification is European-centric is false. America’s explicitly referred to
as “an ingredient for a country” during this colonization phase. Several groups
and cultures were present, which, as logic follows, would include both the
colonizing powers and indigenous populations in America at the time. In other
words, he wasn’t born as the outright personification of the country but rather
seems to have evolved into the title.

“【America, at this time】

He’s more like an ingredient for a country right now, to be
frank.
The East Coast in the 17th century is like a cauldron for the birth
of unique American culture, which may well have been a sign.”

Conclusion:

Overall, it’s ironic that as a series based on stereotypes
Hetalia is wrongly stereotyped for what its content consists of. Likewise, instead
of looking at Hetalia as a series that’s simplistic in nature, analyze how said
simplicity is able to mock and criticize imperialism, colonialism, fascism, and
racism via the device of satirical humour.