“Destruction of the physical body is death. If the reality known as “life” were to be extinguished, will people know you really existed, that you once ate and drew breath…leaving behind tokens of our existence is essentially the same as not dying…For human beings, being remembered does not mean we truly vanish...incidentally, I wish to pet a cat, a cute cat. I want to pet a cat. I want to pet a cat.”
Ah, yes, yet another under-rated character. I’ve always wished that Hima would cover him more in the strips. I would love to see more of Greece’s outlook on immortality given how old he is.
Regardless, what little that we do get of him is pretty interesting in itself, whether it has to do with him reminiscing over his mom’s legacy, generally philosophizing, his laissez-faire attitude towards expressing one’s sexuality, or even the comedic relief of his involvement in the EU.
I’d also like to quickly point out that he doesn’t hate Turkey. Although they claim to hate each other, their actions often prove otherwise.
Characterization post on Greece coming up tonight!
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💖 You guys are too good to me I swear. I know it sucks that it takes me a while to respond to your asks, but I really do try my best to get to them all. I want you to know that I unequivocally appreciate your engagement and take great lengths to record and keep track of them.
It makes me happy that you guys are taking something from these posts. I aim to make people think about links between canon information. And YES! Strips will always take precedence as a primary source of material. You NEVER use the anime as a source.
Of course, I can’t answer some asks given that the information presented is misleading and/or incorrect. This is especially the case if I’ve proved otherwise in a separate post.
However, you’re always free to message me. I’ll happily link you to the correct source information; I just don’t have time to constantly correct misconceptions that I’ve already covered/ misconceptions that could be easily fixed with a simple google search.
That said, welcome back to those of you who are new here. @atrellis It always helps to have a notebook if you want to get your thoughts down. You should definitely try writing! It gets easier with practice 🙂
On top of re-doing the German
Unification strips, which they completely BUTCHERED in the anime, I’d love to
see the Italian Unification movement animated. Romano’s reaction to it is
priceless.
I think what makes it successful
is that the characterization is so subtle that you don’t even realize how strong
of an impact it has. It builds up on you. If you say “England,” I can
immediately evoke a feeling of his personality + other associative emblems of
him; eyebrows, tea, messy blonde hair, eyebrows.
Not to mention how expressive
the drawings and interactions are. Though they lack development in comparison to
the main characters, even newer characters like Macau or Portugal have enough
of a personality for me to reimagine them. Ex: Macau is the prefect student
type and Portugal is the sunny guy who won’t hesitate to mercilessly insult you
with a smile on his face.
The way the stereotypes
are used overall are brilliant in that it prevents you from forgetting characters
easily, minor or not. They all have something unique to them in their design. Belgium
has her headband, bobbed blond hair, and her cat-like smile; Seychelles has her
pig tails and blue dress.
Honestly, whether it’s
the design of the characters, the consistent foreshadowing that links strips
literally years apart from each other, or just the wild, out-there humour,
Hetalia is truly an enjoyable series if you know the proper boundaries in which
you can show your appreciation for it.
Thank you 😊! Here’s a basic rundown of the most relevant strips pertaining to Portugal. I’m not sure if there would be enough on him to do a full characterization post given how recent he is in the canon verse.
Portugal’s introduction can be found in chapters 77-80, and 83-84 of World Stars.
It covers his relationship with Spain, the Netherlands, Macau, Japan, and England. [x]
Ex: He had a close relationship with England, Macau was his underling, he had rocky trading relations with the Netherlands over Macau, and he had good trading relations with Japan. There’s also his hilarious teasing/ somewhat belittling relationship with Spain.
Here’s part of his first character note:
Now for your question:
I know for a fact that he’s not related to Spain. They’re simply listed as neighbors with a similar ancestral influence.
They’re noted to be similar in appearance, but not once are they ever mentioned to be brothers. They even recognize this upon being mistaken for each other.
Given the context, if they were brothers, they would have attributed the similarity of their looks to a blood-relation. They don’t, so it would follow that they’re not related.
I wouldn’t say this annoys me greatly, but it’s definitely a
bit of a pet peeve of mine. Hardly any Hetalia characters are plain or
undeveloped. Even the less developed characters such as Seychelles or Belgium
are given enough depth and personality [don’t worry, I’ll eventually cover
them, as requested]. Unfortunately, the anime doesn’t showcase this due to time
constraints.
Spain isn’t plain. He never was, and some people’s
description of him simply doesn’t give his character justice. Claims that Spain
doesn’t stand out from other characters are unfounded. It doesn’t even take a
lot of digging to find many highpoints in his character. They’re all there; let’s
not sell him short in light of falling back on the lazy and cheap argument that
Hima’s portrayal of him is basic.
While I’ve done a post highlighting the lesser known sides
of him [x], I think now would be a good time to highlight how wonderful and
selfless his personality is.
“Okay, so: what are
the most important strips for a fanfiction writer for Nationverse!fics (with
Human or non Nationverse AU’s you can wing it more). But specifically for
Nationverse is what I want to know! Thanks!”
Anon asked: [On the topic of Germany almost smiling while sight-seeing]
“He also loves sight-seeing in Spain since it became a new number one travel destination for
Germans. Turkey also got popular. Last year the number one was the island of
Mallorca, again. Turkish Rivieria with Egypt benefiting the most with its three
destinations for closer home travel. Long distance, Dominican Republic keeps is
she lead, United Arab Emirates with Abu Dhabi and Dubai takes second and third.
Maldives, Thailand, Mexico follow. I think he smiles whenever he travels.”
Answer:
While we do see that the
nations are affected by public polls and other demographic statistics, I work
with the information explicitly provided in the strips. It’s best not to make
the leap and assume that he likes these places, even though the assumption
makes sense if you know what I mean. Examples provided in the strips are canon. Anything else is a speculation and assumption; well-founded as it may be, it’s still not canon.
You are right, though.
He likes any vacation, but it’s Italy in particular that he always finds
himself going to.
However, just to provide
another example, he’s elated at not having to do any work when he visits
Seychelles with Germany.
Anon asked:
“Thank you for the post about Canada! It certainly clears up a lot 🙂 I
have an observation, though: you said that Canada smokes weed, but in canon, it
actually happened only once and he seemed very embarrassed about the outcome,
there’s no indication that it happened again… I mean it might have, but this
is up to interpretation. (I know that once he got lost in Kuma’s eyelashes, but
there’s no indication of him smoking in that occasion and Hima said that times
flows differently for nations…)”
Answer:
Thank you, I changed the tense to smoked. My bad, I
was really weary from anesthetics when I wrote and edited that post. You’re right, it
seems to be more of a one-time thing given that it happened under the context of the
2011 Vancouver Riots. Uh, we Canadians really get revved up over hockey, eh?
I’m not sure what time flowing differently has to
do with the subject, but the strip you listed can be found in Comic Diary 11. [x] There, Canada spent an entire weekend in a trance just by looking at Kumajiro’s
eyelashes.
Anon asked:
“As much as I love
America, I can’t help but let my cynical side cause me to hate him. Whilst the
character of America is great, I can’t help but let my mind think about the
manipulative nature of SOME American politicians, who do shady stuff and mess
with other countries. Wouldn’t this kind of stuff affect his personality?”