HETALIA: A Fandom Retrospective 

Oh wow I made it into the video. I definitely know I have a tone issue. Its something I’ve been struggling with my entire life. It’s something I’m still working on and it’s why I have a hard time watching my old videos. I really liked your analysis, so I’m going to tell you something I haven’t really told anyone yet. During the time of the Korea video, I was dating a Korean guy who pretty much wrote that video for me. He was really out of touch and VERY self depreciating of his culture. Idk what his deal was but he hated everything about his heritage as for some reason was really pro Japan and kind of simped for imperial Japan. Why did I stay with such a person? That’s another very long story. My ex kind of wrote my apology stuff too. He wrote anything that had to do with politics. I also wasn’t allowed to say anything bad about him and I had to defend his views no matter what, even though he did so many things I thought were horrible. He wasn’t really a good person and that relationship was really really bad. I don’t want to blame him for my behavior, but as much as I hate to admit it, his rudeness and assholery really rubbed off on me. I’m not going to go into detail about the other things he did to me, but he also got me involved in a very bad and crass community that turned me into kind of a political asshole. I have a really hard time standing up for myself, so that’s kind of my fault too. I’m still kind of returning to be a decent human being after all that. I’m just glad I’m a different person now and that I’m not surrounded by horrible and political people anymore. I want to say thanks for making this. I think you were very fair and your Cosplay is amazing.

years ago in 2015 i went to a con dressed in cosplay as flying mint bunny, it being my first time really ever cosplaying with other people around. there's this picture of me being group-hugged by about 20 different Englands, and it makes me smile every time, because as a teenager at the time i don't think i had ever felt so beloved and accepted by other random strangers. my first anime and really first foray into fandom culture, and i'll never be able to discount how it shaped my identity growing up, as 'cringe-y' as it is to look back upon now :)

Hetalia is my current hyperfixation and honestly it can be so embarrassing at times, but it’s nice to know that good sides is the fandom exist 😭

I forgot that our France cosplayer could do the worm, and I lost it when I saw that.

all the hetalia MMD videos...I cant tell if it was exclusive to hetalia or was just a big thing at the time, but dear god. there were so many. i sure did go down that rabbithole as a teen

as much as i'm aware of how badly some aspects of hetalia have aged i can't help but look fondly of those years when i was a cringy pre-teen obsessed with prussia. apart from making me interested in history, hetalia also gave me so many friends from the fandom who i still talk with to this day. also i'm glad you mentioned hetalia ocs! bc latin hetalia was like it's own can of worms. i specially remember people fighting about which one was the "canon" fanon version lmao

I was one of the officers in my anime club and I was personally responsible for getting everyone there into Hetalia back in 2014. It was hypercringe calling eachother by country names but we had so much fun. Even to my senior year, there were people in my school who only knew me as 'Prussia' bc that's who everyone referred to me as 😂

Hetalia took up 99% of my preteen existence and this video was a very messy but enjoyable trip through memory lane

Korean American here; thought I could lend you my perspective on the Korea controversy. Never been a fan of Hetalia, but I saw a few episodes of the dub on the funimation website; I’ll admit some of the jokes made me laugh. I have no issue with Korea being portrayed as loud and obnoxious, but the fact that the author had the GALL to accuse Korea of copying the advancements of other countries and taking credit for them makes my blood boil, especially considering Japanese colonization is what set Korea back considerably and Korea had to rush to play catch up after gaining its independence. Every nation takes inspiration from others’ technological advancements and builds onto them, and as far as I’m aware, South Korea does not have a reputation of copying and taking credit for other countries’ advancements so this characterization came out of left field; likely created from the author’s contempt for Korea. Add to that a flock of Hetalia fans who don’t understand the pervasive effects that Japanese imperialism had on Korea playing apologist for the author and calling Koreans sensitive snowflakes, and you have a recipe for disaster. It’s also ironic that a Japanese author chose to depict Korea as the gropey one considering Japan’s own reputation, but I guess that’s pretty on brand for nationalist writers.

As a veteran of the fandom (circa 2013) I can confirm that most of this information is indeed accurate about the existence of Hetalia. It has held wonderful memories and inspiration for me, but also had the most disturbing fan base I have ever experienced....

My good Hetalia memory: A few years into Hetalia and at the dawn of high school in 2014, my best friend fell head over heels for France, and I for England (I still have the England Hot Topic plush she gave me). I remember making so much cute art of the four of us playing volleyball and walking though the park. My friend and I talked for hours about these guys. We even started a fanfic group at lunch with some other nerds just to talk about them more. The two county dudes became part of our little created family. I didn't have much of an opinion of France back then, if I did, it was negative, but because of my friend's enthusiasm, I started to like France like a fictional brother.

Let's be honest, paint it white is as canon as Gakuen hetalia 😂 it's not historically canon and is just there for fun. Also why didn't they used the human names in Gakuen, they high school students and are the same age and not precisely countries, right?

Shine bright like a Doitsu

i’ve been an active hetalia fan for 8 years and it’s pretty comforting to watch a video where someone clearly and accurately talks about the show and fanbase without any malice or negative bias. it’s important to have critical thought towards the history of hetalia and the community, but it’s hard being a fan in modern day because it has such a negative image in fandom culture that seems kinda non-negotiable at this point. thank you so much for taking the time to make this video :’) and having such an open, comforting discussion in the comments

This is an incredibly well-put together video. I can't shake off the elation I feel knowing that this fandom has at least one long, well-scripted video essay with good audio and visuals that go beyond a computer background, I only generally see such types of videos for huge or recent shows/media (by the way, was the wall paper intentional? It reminds me of the flowers(? plants?) blooming in the Marukait Chikiyuu outros). I myself have only been in the fandom for 5 years. I still remember my friend in Grade 8 showing me funny fan art and memes on the morning school bus after the winter break, convincing me to give Hetalia a watch. It did legitimately get me interested in history, I am currently studying it in university. Unfortunately, ever since I graduated from middle school the friend who got me into Hetalia and I lost contact, and I haven't had an actual face-to-face discussion with anyone about it in 5 years. Can't say I have any funny fandom stories or have contributed to the fandom in any way. By the time I became invested in the fandom, the hype and flux of content had stopped. It truly feels as though I am an archeologist excavating the remains of ancient Greece: sure, there's plenty of relics, enough to give an accurate impression of what things were like, but I'm still missing huge pieces. So many important Tumblr blogs I see reblogs of everywhere that are now deleted. So many fanfics I remember reading but can't find because they might have been deleted, but who knows if I'm just not looking hard enough. The feeling of still being out of the loop to all these inside jokes. I am genuinely frustrated by it, especially the deletion of content I know I would have enjoyed. Sigh, that's life for you... On a more positive note, what I genuinely adore about the fandom is the purposeful shitposting. Beautiful fanart of Gilbird or a crack ship. Edits that are purposefully lazy and cringey. All the nonsensical memes. The fact that England'sEyebrows x Y/N exists. The fact that the fandom is aware of how garbage it, the past fandom, and Hetalia is. Honestly I feel the zaniness of this side of the fandom is exactly the type of fandom Hetalia deserves given the absurd nature of the web comics. I haven't watched seasons 1-4 in 5 years, yet I haven't ever stopped checking out the artifacts of this fandom, and I doubt I will drop out of the fandom anytime in the foreseeable future given how attached I've become to some of these characters. By the way, it's nice to see a fellow Austria fan. He's my second favourite character and I don't come across much fan appreciation for him. A shame, really.

I know you won't see this, but as a 14 year old who was born in 09 (sorry my parents didn't do the devil's tango before 200 bc), I first got into hetalia in late December of 2022. I've been in the fandom for maybe 10 months now and Hetalia has definetly altered my brain. Thanks to Hetalia, I've become obsessed with History and taken an extreme interest in Swiss history (thanks to Switzerland Hetalia). Hetalia has made me research and learn about WW2, WW1, Sino-Japanese wars, and just a bunch of other things. My interest has taken me as far as being in Honors World History class. I have made great online friends from Montenegro to Colombia (I'm Guatemalan), and I'm super grateful for knowing such amazing people who are Hetalians too. I've learned so much stuff, been learning languages, and learned to not do things that were racist unconsciously. I've grown so much as a person and that wouldn't have happened w/o Hetalia

I learned english to translate spamano fanfiction.

hetalia was cringe but we were so happy 😭 it dominated my middle school years, my friends irl & online were into it so of course i threw myself into the fandom full force when i was like 13. i was part of a tumblr shitposting rp group & i'm still friends with some of those some people even tho i'm turning 23 in a few months !! occasionally i go back and listen to my favorite character songs & watch a few old hetalia videos 😭😭 does anyone remember the grip that disco pogo had on the hetalia fandom? does anyone else remember the romanopocalypse? also the way the first thing i thought when the video started was that you were disneybounding as austria 😭😭 i will never forget the time in 7th grade when i turned in a history essay from the pov of england talking about WWII & my teacher thought the concept of a country as a person was creative.. she loved it & gave me an A

As a relatively new hetalia fan, i kinda wish I’d been there when hetalia was more popular. Thank u for making such a well put together video, I now know more about what the fandom was like back in the day. Hetalia truly is a great if rather strange thing, and I think it had many good points to it (as well as pretty bad ones). As a Korean, I’m happy with how you dealt with the Japanese-Korean drama even though you don’t know much about either countries. I too have a Korean friend who absolutely despises the show and thinks it’s Japanese imperialism propaganda. I personally don’t think so; the whole show is indeed for comedy like you said, so it shouldn’t be taken so seriously. My take on it is that Hima didn’t know much about japanese-Korean tensions and uses whatever background knowledge he had (what I heard was that Japanese people aren’t taught much of what their country did around ww2). Maybe he meant to loosen tensions by purposely making the Korea character offensive (which it was, I’m glad he was banned). Tbh, deep down I wish korea could still appear in the anime, he could be an adorable character. Comment is getting too long, so I’ll shut up but thank u again for the vid^^

I had heard of hetalia but only started watching during the March 2020 lockdown. It’s an easy show to binge

This isn't a "fun" memory, but I am just so, so grateful to my aunt for convincing me to leave off the iron cross from my APH Germany cosplay back in 2010. At the time I was just like "but it's not a swastika...?" but I trusted her and others who suggested it, and years later I'm like, thank GOD she did, thank god there aren't photos drifting around the internet with me wearing a f-ing iron cross @_@ Anyway, I loved this video, thank you so much for addressing all the difficult stuff.

I think my favorite Hetalia memory would be when my friend made and gifted me a Mochi! Austria plush. Austria was my favorite character at the time so I was very happy and I still have the plush to this day.

Just happened across this and it brought back a memory from the Hetalia fandom at a convention. I was cosplaying Spain and got pulled into a Hetalia panel. They even gave me a cute Spain drawing! It was a sort of 'ask the countries' panel if I remember correctly. Been years now, but I am grateful for this video reminding me of it! What are the kids saying now "I am Cringe but I am Free"

as someone who has never watched hetalia or interacted with the fandom everything in the honorable mentions section has me frothing at the mouth with curiosity you CANNOT just say "GERMAN SPARKLE PARTY" and not explain yourself /lh /j

im a little late but hetalia will always have a special place in my heart, despite of jumping into fandom at 2017 (i wish i could do it earlier), i remember watching first series with my mom (her favorite character is France btw), roleplaying and having lots of fun with my friends (i was called brother Seborga hope i wrote this correctly), we congratulated each other's birthday as hetalia chatscters, even to this year i still have some people in hetalia fandom i yap about doitsuism with and make headcanons about characters, im so glad this fandom still alive despite of losing its peak after years of stuff, long live hetalia pasta

Man watching this in 2023 is so wild to me, now. I was just a stupid young teen in my peak Hetalia days and I admit I did some pretty not savory stuff as a dumb 11 year old with no concept of what good or bad was in the general world of fandom vs reality. But one of the strongest bonding forces of me and my middle school/high school friends was probably our Hetalia fanfic community on Quizilla. Thank god wayback machine archived all of my old Hetalia quizilla fanfiction profiles because seeing how much it inspired me to write and just enjoy myself is still nostalgic to me. S/O to my friend and I who decided we would Hetalia-ify all 50 United States and split them up 25 to 25 for each of us. Mainly our OCs Alaska and Hawaii who were sisters and raised by Russia for like NO REAL GOOD REASON??? LIKE THE AMOUNT OF SAD BACKSTORY FOR ALASKA THAT HAD NO REASON BEING AS SERIOUS AS IT WAS WAS WILD. Good times. Good, horrible times.

i was just watching that big "what the internet did to undertale" video essay and It got me wondering whether or not someone had made something to that effect for hetalia, because hoo fucking boy, this fandom was huge!! and no one seems to talk about it much!! maybe that's for a reason lol but hetalia was definitely one of the biggest fandoms that shaped me during my formative years as a really young kid (too young with too much access to the internet) and while it does make me cringe and regret a lot of the things i did/said during that time, it'll always hold a really fond spot in my heart! this video was incredibly done, and it makes me really happy to know that people are talking about hetalia like literal decades after its peak popularity!!

As someone who joined the fandom in around 2018? I always find it interesting to chat to old fans about what the hayday was like. Some of this stuff I knew kind of, but I’m mostly involved in the Historical Hetalia side of the fandom, and in my own bubble, so I’m really greatful you covered things such as the Korea drama and the Seychelles thing. Thanks for the awesome video!

I didn't actually watch many episodes from the anime, but I LOVED purusing the tumblr tag #historicalhetalia because it was mostly filled with people who were history enthusiasts first, fans of the anime second. It was filled with tons of beautiful artworks with careful attention to accurate costume and other details, and usually long descriptions of the facts and stories they'd learned while studying real history that inspired them. Ya know, with Hetalia characters, lol. I also enjoyed the fanfictions of a few writers who shared this same enthusiasm for history and had amazing prose and a more tactful approach to making historical fiction. A lot of those authors played up the supernatural aspects of what immortality would be like for a character too, and the intrigue of those versions sticks with me to this day. Really cool stuff, and I'll always look back fondly at my time as a lurker in the fandom, lol.

So many things in this video gave me flashbacks oh gosh. Hetaoni, 2p, "Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart" (hearing that it's gone from FFNet makes me SO SAD 😭), Ask a Nation panels... I didn’t engage with every one of these, but you couldn’t be a Hetalia fan on tumblr in those days and not be familiar with them. God I miss it sometimes. Remember Nyotalia and Nekotalia and the Hetastuck fandom ship? Just...so much crazy and wild things that brought my little 14 year old heart so much joy. Like you said, for all its problems, I still love Hetalia for all the joy it brought me when it was my hyperfixation. One of my favorite memories was going to an anime night at a library a few towns over. I wore my homemade Canada cosplay (long sleeve shirt, khakis, carrying my white bear, and a maple leaf drawn on my forehead in red marker). I remember sitting next to a Prussia cosplayer and talking and laughing the whole night. Near the end, she told me, "You know, when you first got here, I genuinely thought you were cosplaying America. It's perfect!" and she absolutely made my night with that comment. For a kid who really struggled to make friends for so many years because she got bullied for her fandoms and who never had a dime to spend on "official" cosplays, being able to walk into a space like that and have someone not only connect with me socially on the sole basis of a shared fandom but also recognize my basic homemade cosplay but ALSO experience a long-running canon joke about it? I was in heaven. I don't think we ever exchanged real names, certainly not any contact info, but I hope she's doing well and living her best life. Thank you for this awesome video essay and for encouraging me to revisit a series and memories that brought me so much joy 💜

I have known Hetalia since 2009, but I fell in love with her in 2014 and still love her. For me, hetalia I am not just a work, But such a unique thing, where I was allowed to look at everything with different eyes and understand other people from other countries.

Damn I miss Hetalia so much It was the first big fandom I had, was a big fan from 2013 to 2019 Sadly I was catapulted out of it because the Hetalia Cosplayer scene in my country got quite toxic and more and more people left. I had so much fun I learned a lot about History, about cultures and my Geography grade got a lot better I started to write little fanfictions for friends, I started to cover and translate, I created a lot I still have my France, Belgium, Russia and female Romano cosplays in my closet I probably won't wear them again, but I also can't throw them away Hetalia is a kind of joy, a feeling of home, that I miss and was not able to find again I get a feeling of homesickness when I think about the characters or listen to the songs and see old mmd videos Thank you for the great video about this messy but wonderful chaos that was and is Hetalia c:

Something that gives me fond memories was how vast the fandom was. There were niches within niches within niches, all bigger than some entire fandoms, and I adored that: AUs, fanfics, fangames, etc. Only comparison I can think to make is the My Little Pony fandom happening at the same time. While the fandom was a mess, so was I, and it got me through many tough times. I try not to remember the problematic aspects or the people, and when I do, it’s to use them as a learning experience. Only thing we can do now as adults is learn from our mistakes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But yeah, it’s like Hetalia was this collective fever dream all us twenty-somethings had but are too ashamed to admit. So thank you for being able to give such an insightful and measured analysis of our odd little blip in fandom history that we called home. 😊

This analysis is so so SO good! The quality, the depth, and the sheer amount of how much was covered! I personally got into hetalia in the first place because I saw posters for it at Comic Con 2014 and when I asked what anime it was, someone recommended it to me. Last year I suddenly got back into it in a huge way after a giant pause and I'm into it now more than ever. If anything, my recent hetalia phase got me not just into writing fanfiction (they're all historical fics, which I *always* research the history of to make sure they're accurate), but also into real-life history (if only because I wanted to know more about my favorite hetalia characters; I know, cringe). Just wanted to say thanks for such a great video. P.S: also love that Game Grumps reference

New fan here! This really helped me understand more about stuff, I do have ships, however I’m also a multi shipper and all hetalia ships are problematic, I also have crack ships for fun (like Sweden x table) and I really like your videos and I was extremely happy to find that you did an hour+ long video about it! (I know this was 2 years ago but still) I really want to get into cosplay and I think your Austria cosplay was amazing! :3

I spent my middle school years in the trenches of Hetalia. I honestly learned a lot about human decency and what kinds of things are not jokes. But I still had a really great time. I always enjoyed the pirate aus. Also, me and all my friends in my little middle school friend group assigned eachother as characters and would shout our country names down the hallway to eachother. I was Germany.

I remember being a semi well known Canada cosplayer in the midwest in 2014-2015. My aunt helped me put together my cosplay for my birthday and I would wear it to every con for all three days usually. It looked really good, I think it got stolen when I moved cities in 2017 and even though I probably wouldn't cosplay from Hetalia again I miss that cosplay a lot. I remember a lot of people would tell me it was okay to break character and I would have to awkwardly explain that I wasn't in character, that was just kind of how I acted. The biggest thing that's changed is I have a little bit more confidence and do a lot more performing arts stuff. I've always been super into history but Hetalia helped keep that going and before the pandemic I was going to college for fashion history specializing in the 1940s-1970s and I think Hetalia probably at least vaguely sparked some of that for me. Part of why I personally left the fandom was because I lived in a small town where other fans did kind of glorify nazis and as someone who's indigenous and Jewish I noped the fuck out.

This takes me baaaaaack. I think I still have my ancient Switzerland videos on this channel. I also have you playing as Cowboy!America after/during one of the Ouran things. I really enjoyed that time machine ride. Thank you. As "cringe" as Hetalia is, it's because of Hetalia that I met so many friends.

I came to acknowledge about hetalia in late 2013/2014 through strange fanart so I decided to check out the show. Loved it and still do to this day.

This came up on my feed after I started watching hetalia again and I was SHOCKED to see your follower count- fantastic quality videos!! Excited to watch you grow!

You have a great first hand experience and I really like your videos. Keep making more!

My very first cosplays were from Hetalia and for that it will always have a special place in my heart. Although it’s not my favorite thing when people ask me what my first cosplay is because the conversation can stop reaaaaally quick lmao

Wow! I cannot believe how incredibly well-written, researched, and put together this video is! I feel like you have truly covered all of the major components of what makes up the Hetalia fandom and not only am I incredibly impressed, but this video was such a pleasure to watch. All these comments are really insightful too and I would be interested in a video highlighting some of the ideas brought up by the comments. I've personally been an on and off again Hetalia fan for about 7 years now (it seriously is a hell hole that is impossible to escape) and Hetalia will always hold a special place in my heart. I think its flexibility in content and fanon is what allowed me to let my imagination and creativity flow (likely because of its vast content). Although not historically accurate by any stretch of the word, Hetalia is what initially imbedded a love of history and culture within me. It was my first introduction to history being presented in a fun and entertaining manner and it left me wanting to know more about the historical events being hinted. Here are a couple of my takeaways: 1. Fan Content: The largest point I agree with is the sheer amount of Hetalia content that had an actual audiance for it. Not only did the actual canon have alternate universes WITHIN the show itself (neko, highschool, etc.), but a lot of alternate universes in fanon with a lot of fan content also arose (cardverse, fantasy, etc.) Hetalia's integration and general acceptance of alternate universes is unlike that of other fandoms. Sure every fandom has alternate universes but defiantly not on the fanfic or fanart scale of Hetalia. 2. Shipping and Troupes: Personally, my Hetalia ships revolved around troupes and genres I enjoyed. Because I didn't have the family relationship I wanted, such was reflected in stories/concepts of dysfunction and reconciliation in shipping FrUK to fit the premise of the FACE family and it brought me A LOT of comfort and solace. This system of shipping was reflected a lot in my top ships (ie. Shipping DenNor and seeing them as parental/brotherly figures to Iceland, SpaBel and Romano, some variation of AusPruHun and Germany and Italy, etc.) That being said, in combination with a variety of personalities that come with a variety of characters, it is understandable why so many pairings arose. If someone liked height differences, they could ship AmeriPan, if they liked love-hate relationships, they could ship FrUk, etc.) 3. Human Names: The use of human names, in my opinion, allows for the humanization of characters as well as the ability to disconnect the character from the country's responsibilities and historical shortcomings. It is used as a form of safeguarding relationships through separating the character from politics or events. For example, it is the idea that America might have left England but Alfred didn't leave Arthur. If I'm not mistaken, I think HetaOni used human names in a similar manner as well. Besides, human names just feel more natural in long-winded fanfics with more serious themes.

fantastic video! i myself am a hetalia veteran with 10+ years of being in and out of the fandom. i was...way too young to start watching it but i absolutely adored it and didn't stop for 5 years straight! you touched on a lot of the main points i see come up now and again in the fandom, and i really appreciate the amount of research you put into this video, definitely feels like a sarah z video lol i made an oc for the city of osaka and put my heart and soul into writing her properly + research, and got a good amount of positive feedback and friends who also had ask blogs i also adore the hetagames that came out after hetaoni and romaheta were released, it created a niche part of the fandom that i'm very comfortable engaging with i even went on sites like omegle so i can rp as hetalia characters, which later switched to chatzy rooms. i met a few people on there that i remained friends with for years before unfortunately losing contact with them. however, i will never forget how happy it made me feel

I found this really interesting - I'm not an 'old' fan (think 3-4 yrs ago rather than 5++), but I have aged out of it. One positive thing about Hetalia, despite its general 'cringiness', is that it has and probably still does inspire learning in those who choose to take their obsessions beyond the anime. I got halfway through the Norwegian duolingo tree and through two Icelandic memrise courses - along with memorising the map of Europe - before I fell out of love with the show, despite how little the Nordics actually show up in the show/webcomics. It's pretty surreal to look back and think that wow, that was a thing I actually did.

A great video, as always. Ill forever and always be grateful for Hetalia. In a weird way, its a foundation of our friendship, and my intro to Anime as a whole. So many of my core y/a memories are centered around cosplaying with you and falling head first into the Fandom. I remember the first Ask A Nation panel at CosplaCon, and having to lean over to you mid panel to ask what yaoi is. And trying to justify that Orange is the next closest thing to "vicked hipster pink". I had no idea what I was doing half of the time, but I had a blast anyway.

As someone who isn’t into Hetalia, I looked up videos talking about the fandom not expecting much, but instead I find this amazingly well put video. If you decided to make another one talking about more fandom stories I would totally watch.

I HAVE WAITED SO LONG FOR A VIDEO LIKE THIS THANK YOU SO MUCH! :D

I think I left a comment similar on one of Kolko’s videos: I was introduced to Hetalia on my 14th b-day (2015) by my best friend at the time. They were a huge Prussia Stan and basically talked and acted like him while not in cosplay, it made my parents very upset when they wouldn’t stop when asked nicely. It soured my parents opinion on the anime, which I have only watched the dud anime (reading subtitles is hard for me). My experience in the fandom has been positive with small discussions with my friends who were also in the fandom. I’m pretty sure we confused most other people at our high school with the very occasional “white board take over” where we would fill our world history teacher’s white board while he watched and laughed at the parodied quotes. I also may or may not have written “Ze Awesome Prussia Vas Here!” On his white board everyday.

I accidentally stumbled upon this video while searching for something to listen to while working on my new cosplay and I must admit, I didn't expect such a high quality video when I looked at your channel's ratio. Although the topic is rather fun you made an extensive research and the whole video is very well executed. You definitely deserve more recognition for your channel and what you upload, keep up on doing great videos! On a side note I'll definitely binge watch your other content now (also just subscribed ;v)

This was a really great video! I was afraid it was gonna be another of those bashing videos about how Hetalia is so cringe and terrible, and I have never been happier to be proven wrong. I got into the fandom in 2014, I think, and I've somehow stuck around all this time, with small breaks when I've obsessed over something new, but I have not really properly left. It's been kind of sad seeing the fandom shrink and other people I know leave it, even if I joined after the peak popularity. I still remember a lot of the fanfics and fancontent I found back in the day, it all had this very special Vibe to it I can't really find in any other fandom. Watching Hetalia amvs on RU-vid makes me feel really nostalgic. :) I never did really participate in fandom before a few years ago, aside from reading fics and consuming other fan content, so my personal Hetalia experience is very heavily tied to my own fanfic ideas, which have become so dear to me I don't think i'll ever completely get rid of the series :'D I was writing before joining fandom, but a lot of my dearest story ideas now either started out as or are Hetalia fics, and I am really glad I've got them as a part of my life! I can also say that despite the fact that I do sometimes feel somewhat.. embarrassed, maybe, about liking the show, without it, I literally would not be the person I am today or where I am in life today. I was interested in history before I knew of Hetalia, but certainly not to the degree I am today! Not to mention I would not have taken Russian as a minor in university, or gotten interested into some less well known parts of the history of my home country, were it not for this show. I still don't really participate in the fandom much - I am one of those rare few unfortunate non-shippers in the fandom where everyone is shipped with everyone, so most of the content in the fandom is not really my jam, but that's a personal thing across fandoms lol - but anytime I stray too far, coming back to Hetalia gives me a warm feeling, kind of like coming home. :) Thanks for the great video!!

Hetalia was my special interest from 2019-2021 and this video hit me like a truck lol

Very informative! I love how you laid it all out so well. I am a somewhat newer fan, so a lot of these things you talked about I had missed out, which is probably a good thing. 😂 I can’t believe you only have 100+ subs, this was so well done. ❤️

I don’t think Hetalia is nationalistic, but I do think that the Japanese education system hasn’t been able to escape nationalistic biases when it comes to teaching history, contributing to a biased collective narrative among citizens which can seep through the media that Japanese people create. I was born and raised in Japan, and in my personal experience, we are not taught very well on the atrocities that Japan committed leading up to and during the world wars. One example is how the term “military led comfort women” is only used by one textbook company when referring to the Korean and other Asian women who were kidnapped/tricked and were sexually assaulted by Japanese soldiers. The term preferred by many textbooks is simply “comfort women”. This is a problem because it tries to erase the fact that these comfort women were organized by the military and that it was an organized act condoned by the government, instead making it seem like it was done on an individual scale.

This video certainly took me BACK. I joined the fandom in 2015, and it had a massive impact on my tween years. Although now I’m a college student and have outgrown the series, looking back at it gives me so much nostalgia. Great video!

I feel like I found a hidden gem lol

First of all, what a fantastic video. I love deep dives of old school fandoms, and I've been looking forever for one that actually covered my main fandom during my teenage years. You absolutely delivered, as your video really shows a very nuanced and critical analysis of what the fandom was like in its golden years. I personally haven't properly engaged in Hetalia content for some years now, but it did have an important role in my life when I was 13-16. Ironically enough, I ended up mayoring in History, and therefore I cannot longer look at it as an illustration of historical events or cultures. Still, I'm still very fond of the characters and their dynamics as people, not countries, and I look back fondly to those years. I particularly enjoyed a lot seeing people represent their cultures and be inspired to do their own research. Since my country, Mexico, doesn't have a personification, it was pretty cool to see interpretations based on history, politics and culture, obviously when done properly and respectfully. I have noticed that many of us that still have a foot set on the fandom tend to get attached to other non-canon media. Even though I haven't properly invested in Hetalia these years, I was much more interested in the HetaOni part of the fandom, which in my opinion deserves it's very own analysis. I almost got sad that you didn't went more into it, as I feel it was a huge part of the fandom and spawned a series of Hetalia RPG's that also tend to remain unfinished. I love time travel, kind of horror-esque stories, and having established characters that I already loved in it was a nice way to live that narrative. It also provided a narrative that the original content lacked. I've seen ver talented folks create the coolest content for HetaOni, such as ending interpretations, fanart, edits or manga adaptations. To some extent, that talent can also be seen through the whole fandom, and it's pretty awesome to see. And, as fans who mostly want to enjoy Hetalia in peace and seek some kind of comfort in it, it's important to remember also the arguments that many people hold against the original series, and full respect the boundaries of those who don't want anything to do with it. It's also very important to be concious of its many, many problems, messages and ideas. I fully think that we can do both things with enough care. Again, thanks for this video. It was very well-made and researched, and shows both a great love for your memories in the fandom and a good sensitivity for delicate topics. You definitely gained a subscriber.

oh boy, this brings back memories! this is a good video, it was kinda sad that there wasn't many videos out there about this fandom, at least that I know of, that don't completely idolize or demonize it. My fondest memory is probably getting to see many of the cool ask blogs active, that was a very fun side of the fandom (especially that one skyrim au usuk blog)

To be completely honest (as a spamano shipper) there are very few people who ship them with the fact that Spain raised romano. Most of the time it's in an au (human au is the most popular), or their age gap is gone. People that ship child romano and Spain are hated and mass reported (as they should be). I can 100% understand how some people wre still uncomfortable by the fact though.

Thank you for this great video! I enjoyed it a lot :)

Super excited for this one. I know nothing about this aside from my brother being really into it for all of like 3 months.

*Hm.* It's hard to associate Hetalia with good memories. Especially as an oblivious Jewish kid who had a weird fixation on Germany that I eventually realized was weird. Very, very weird. Guess the best things I can describe were those nights I'd stay up, pouring iver DeviantART fanfiction of the Nordic countries taking care of the young, child reader and feeling comforted by these warm little wintery tales before bed. But besides that, in retrospect, things were weird. But, I was weird. I was like 12 at best and didn't have a lot of perception and now the series is just an awkward memory to me, and I suppose that's where it belongs.

Loved this video so much! I've been in the fandom for a long time as well (like 8 years), and every time you mentioned something I also knew I got so excited! A solid Hetalia memory I have is when my current best friend and I realize we were old Hetalians. It happened a while ago (like 2017-2019) but its still so funny to remember. It really helped me bond with them.

as a long time and now ex member of this fandom, this video was amazing. gave me flashbacks to moments i didn’t want to remember 😃 i’m only like a quarter into this and i hope you bring up the gutters and auf fanfics that had us all in a choke hold lmao okay you brought them up 😩

Wow, what an informative and fun video! Your enthusiasm really shone through. I am brand-new to Hetalia, bought the first five seasons as a lot on eBay because I love World History and heard this show is history teachers' guilty pleasure. I haven't even popped in a disc yet, so this was an excellent introduction and has me eager to jump in. Great tip on the dub and sub being unto themselves, so I can enjoy the series twice! I long ago taught middle school and I can tell you're that cool and effective teacher who can connect with the kids. Wishin' you all the best! PS: Loved your "spirit gum" take on the old Spidey theme! Cracked me up. 🙂

This video is so great! You are so eloquently spoken. Like yourself I was big into Hetalia at its peak and I still consider that time as my most creative and free and the characters pop into my mind every now and again. When you mentioned having any notable memories from it I thought I’d comment that I met my best friend through Hetalia! We met on tumblr (Christ, I know) she was a Denmark x Norway fan fiction writer and I was an ask Norway art blog! We got chatting and naturally assumed we lived in different continents only to find we lived 20 minutes from eachother in Northern Ireland!! Best friends still for 10 years!!! 🥰 Thanks to Hetalia 🇩🇰 🇳🇴

This video is very well put together! And while it may be long, it never gets boring, you're very good at keeping my attention (which most people are not, congrats) and you cover a lot of stuff (which is a good thing)! I think this video was really really good, thank you for making it

I really enjoyed this video. I’m a new hetalia fan as I joined just last year and managed to drag a friend into it with me. Even though there is some cringey (mostly old stuff I stumbled upon) stuff I really enjoy this fandom because it helped and still helps me through rough times. It also feeds and encourages my interest for foreign cultures languages etc. As a German I never really liked my culture and felt like there were so much better places elsewhere because I grew up thinking we don’t really have one anymore ( a lot Media presented only this one particular part of our history) and didn’t appreciate or saw some things of my culture and developing more interest in history of other but also my own country I started appreciating some things more. Overall I have a really fun time with the fandom and found comfort in the show. It motivates me a bit more to appreciate this life when it’s hard. Sorry that this comment is so long

what a blast to the past. thank you for putting this thoughtful, well-worded, engaging analysis together; it reminded me everything I love and hate the most about hetalia, and I agree with all of your points completely. luckily my memories of this fandom are all fun and almost painfully nostalgic, from writing fanfiction by hand during class to d&d-style improv roleplaying with friends. we used to play "risk" and select our territories based on the nation we wanted to roleplay as, then wage bloody war against one another, all in-character. I still remember how china was my personal favourite specifically because of the portion of the fandom that focused on the thousands of years of truly badass history. I guess what I'm trying to say is I miss hetalia dearly, despite its many faults. thank you for this video, truly. hope to see more from you in the future 🌹

Wow, this was a throwback. I have to thank you for making this video because I'm glad to see some media exploring the fandom that wasn't completely negative or completely positive, and you did a really nice job at portraying the majority of the fandom as it was, the good, the bad, and the grey. Hetalia is something that I hold in a special place because it was like my first real fandom fixation, and I mean hyperfixation fixation. I kinda stumbled upon it after finding fandom via Lord of the Rings and 1D (I wanted to read more about faramir and eowyn and that was how I discovered fanfiction and the first long fanfiction that I read, that made me know about it as a way of creation and really introduced me to the fandom sphere, was a niall x reader fic but since I didn't really want to be self-inserted I just kinda took it as niall x y/n), and while I had spent some time getting to know fandom with Harry Potter, I dove headfirst into Hetalia and didn't resurface. It's really kinda insane if I really look at myself and consider what influences Hetalia had on me. Off the top of my head, I can say that Hetalia helped instill in me a love of world history (especially less modern histories because I was a huge fan of Prussia (rip)), a love of humour, internet skills and awareness (long story), understanding of fandom and the abilities of fanon, and a sort of weird self-confidence. Yeah I liked hetalia. Yeah I wrote hetalia fanfiction and named my username based off a hetalia ship that I personally wasn't that into but thought it made a funny username anyways. What are you gonna do? I'm not gonna regret that, it was some of the most fun I've ever had, and I'll admit to it easily. I drifted out of the fandom because I wasn't really into it all that much anymore, and disassociated myself from it because it wasn't really interesting anymore and felt cringy. It didn't help that since I was so young, I hadn't really considered the majority of the implications with the more problematic aspects until after I fell out of hetalia, and so confronting it again later made me go yikes™, especially since I saw the criticism from more of the side of the anti-hetalia crowd and didn't really bother thinking it through properly. But I've had more time to think on hetalia, and videos like yours really help me in considering this fandom and show that played such a huge role in shaping me since. I don't think I'll ever love hetalia like I did before, as it's more of a nostalgic love that I have. I'm glad of what it made me, and I'm glad you made this video to remember it as it was.

This is kinda off topic but the captions called himaruya hemorrhoids lmaoooo

I’m a new fan (been a fan since 2020) and while the fandom is dead as ever I still love it. Great vid btw! I like your 🇦🇹cosplay, this is the most interesting recap video of the fandom I’ve seen 💕💕

Omg playing Winter as Austria that’s great (despite Vivaldi being Italian but I digress). It’s great that you bring up the Japan nationalism bc most naysayers focus more on the European part when there’s actually really solid baggage with how Japan is portrayed(as if it had not much to do with WW2 at large), and this is emphasised in the Hetalia trivia books of history that I bought(which contains not even a peep of japan’s role in WW2 it was all about the European side). There’s also a lot of interesting landmines with regards to East Asian portrayal which I’m surprised hasn’t gotten nuked yet. Fortunately since the revamp for World stars it has gotten a lot more tactful and actually educational, with the repurposing of characters as malleable nation spirits that change as far as their leaders take them, it makes for very interesting interpretations of character will vs what their leaders direct them. Anyway I’m glad I’m back in the fandom after a 10 year wait for my country to be shown, I love how it is now because we are all matured fans and can discuss in a careful but fun manner. Good video!

i joined the fandom in early 2018 which was way past its peak even by that time, the fandom experience back then wasn’t as bad as the early 2010’s era other than the stuff that happened when i already left by mid 2019. i really enjoyed how concise this was and really loved the austria cosplay!! it’s really interesting to see how the fandom has been doing in 2023 while i unfortunately am reliving this fixation again

Every few years my Hetalia phase would awaken as I look up any new character songs or watch a new season if there's any. This is the first time I tried watching Hetalia youtube commentaries and I'm glad yours is the first I watched. It's like I went through a time machine of all the shit and good shit this series and its fandom has. So fun and so cringe. I will always love Hetalia.

Hello! after months of watching this video I decided to come back and leave one more comment but first I would like to praise you for the way. When I saw the video on my recommended at first it made me feel nervours because I was sure you would treat it like it was the most irredemeable piece of media ever (like some people already treat it), bring up stuff that was made up in the first place or act like the actions of a few people represents all of us. But no, instead you got the perfect balance between poiting it's flaws and problematics (actually going a bit deeper than I expected) while also talking about the cool and nostalgic things. My first contact with hetalia was in 2014 when I was 12 and it was my first contact with a big fandom too, it was love at first sight as a nerdy kid with a very big interest in both history and countries history (also 98% of the designs were very appealing to me) it was like an anime custom made for me. God, it was such a fun time all around, listening to character songs (I still know some of them), seeying the prettiest cosplays (and wishing I could do one), looking around the south american oc blogs (some still around to this day), finding the most content about my otp (it was rochu and of course this included those stolen art slideshow videos lol) and other fandom things. I don't think I stayed more than 6 months but I swear I remenber it better than fandoms I stayed for years, I unfortunally got diagnosticated with depression in 2016 at age 14 and got into some awful time from 2016 to now. I got back to it in 2021 with the new season and it have been one of my main hyperfixations and sources of comfort I bought all the manga volumes published and a bunch of merch, revisiting the things that I saw in 2014 and the new content have helped me a lot throught my depression (I also have made some wonderful friends). Who would have guessed the first fandom I ever was in would come back to help me? I would never see it coming.

wow this just randomly popped into my recommended, hopefully thats a sign the algorithm will pick it up! hetalia was my first real online fandom and i was probably 9-10 when i joined it??? first of all i used google+ for it which is a trip all on its own but i used it to do roleplay and made my first ever online friends. now im 18 and have written hundreds of thousands of words of literary rp and fanfiction and writing is my greatest passion in life! like you said, hetalia was really consumed through the fan interpretations of it. so i honestly watched this learning new things because my engagement with the material was so many layers deep into transformative works that i didnt realize it was a webcomic lol... this video scratched an itch for me, hetalia was such a weird thing. but a cool weird thing

51:52 Raivis is not made up, It is a legitimate name that is actually in use in Latvia and Estonia, I have asked a Latvian friend about it and they think it's fine as a first name. Galante yes is weird though. Also about Estonia's Eduard von Bock is not only is it german, but also a bit insensitive to some points of history and I'm unsure if as a native is even possible to choose to have

man, hetalia, used to be in the fandom and honestly made a lot of cool buddies and ngl it was the first ever fandom I got in that I got to do actual RP and had fun with them too! Was a pre teen and I remembered doing tons of stupid stuff trying to make myself look cooler or even talked to people with my old closed minded self, now im proud of who I am but wasnt too proud back then. The fandom helped me a lot in making really interesting artworks and made me like my country more so than I ever have. Really enjoyed this video and gotta say it brought up a lot of memories of me bein in the fandom, teh good, teh bad and all in between

This video is so fantastic that I watched all of it in one sitting without ever clicking away. I LOVE IT! I got into Hetalia at the same time you did and it sounds like we're the same age. I am still very much in love with the series and it carried me through my darkest moments. It has always been there to cheer me up and I made so many friends because of it AND it helped my self-esteem with how much attention and praise I got in the fandom. I was a very prolific Hetalia reader-insert writer on dA with over 300 followers, and I was credited by multiple people as helping make China more popular in the fandom because of my 20+ chapter ChinaxReader series (which I started precisely because I noticed an overall lack of China fan content). While my dA account no longer exists, according to the Wayback machine I had over 300 deviations and I am very sure that 90% were Hetalia reader-insert fanfics. (I should add I am not entirely innocent though, I DEFINITELY wrote one extremely insensitive fanfic about a real-world event.) Even now I am reliving those easier years by writing a new reader-insert series and it gives me so much nostalgia. I get so much dopamine from writing, which I love, from writing characters that I love, and from every follow, kudos, comment, and hit. Ironically, even though I've met people that joined Hetalia because of the ships, I only ever intensely shipped RoChu and only for about 6 months. I'm generally not a shipper and liked staying in my reader-insert bubble (so maybe I'm just a trash self-insert shipper only lol). Anyway, that was just me describing my fond memories as you wanted. But as for your actual video, I kept thinking "oh she didn't talk about this and I should mention it," but then you would talk about it! Seriously, this is SO THOROUGH and educational for newbies. You did an EXCELLENT job!!!!! The two, TWO VERY LITTLE TINY DETAILS I would have added are that Hetalia is only past its prime in the West: the amount of advertisement and new merch in Japan is insane, including a FIFTH musical that is in production. I'd also MAYBE include the phenomenon of reader insert fanfictions. Hetalia was the first fandom that I really got into (ironically the only other one is Fate/ which is about historical and mythological figures so there is quite a bit of Hetalia crossover content) so I'm honestly not sure how popular they were before Hetalia. Additionally, as shown above, this is coming from a point of extreme bias. I do faintly remember some fandom disputes about whether reader-insert fanfics are pathetic or not, but again, I wasn't an entirely innocent kid and I 100% got had beef with the author of Kidnapped by Sexy Men lol.

I came in late and just enjoyed the comedy and creativity. I also really relate to my country's characterization, which is awesome, though I don't even know how his human name would be pronounced, I've never heard it before.

Oh my goodness its been SO LONG since I've seen Hetalia being even mentioned 😭😭 I don't know how I found this video- I just don't know. But I used to be in a friend group which loved this series!!! Which, I never got into? As such, this is such an interesting watch and gives me so much context to my VERY OLD friend group!!

I used to use hetalia ask nation con videos as my way to get through secondary school they meant so much to me lmao.

i just got back into hetalia, and i am so glad this video exists! i still remember going to my first con as punk!England and having so much fun with the other hetalia cosplayers there! i have never felt more welcomed :)

Quicly coming down here to say, awesome video! :D

escalator Austria..... god I didn't expect to be called out and made so nostalgic in the first 30 seconds but I'm so pleased to have found you elsewhere online lol

I remember being in high school when Hetalia got popular and being put off by it massively- in no small part because I just tend to gravitate away from comedy-centric shows. But, because I was in high school, I couldn't just leave it there. Whenever negative word was spread about Hetalia, I put it into my brain as another reason why it was a 'bad show'. In college I started reading Hetalia fanfiction, and ended up feeling a certain amount of attachment to a lot of the characters. This retrospective really helped me realize how true it is that you see the worst of every fandom. I hope you make more content like this, you are the perfect balance of analytical and fair in your summaries and that is my favorite part of any massive retrospective video, fandom related or otherwise.

Heyy there! I'm DolceMinerva97 aka FlopyLopez from dA and a friend just told me I was mentioned in your video. Just wanted to say a BIG thank you, I was having a rough day and this video put a smile on my face. Thank you so much for appreciating my work and mentioning me even though there were so many amazing OC creators you could have chosen! To this day I am still actively developing my hetalia ocs, they have never stopped being my main source of inspiration and this kind of appreciation brings a lot of motivation to keep going. Thank you! 🤗🤗🤗💙🤍💙

I'm a very new Hetalia fan, and only recently have I watched all the show again and I'm back into it! Excited to watch this even though I know the bad will be *bad*. Now that I've finsihed watching, I wanted to say how this video was SO GOOD!!! It makes me wish I got into Hetalia eariler as a now 15 year old- but I'm still happy I stuck to Hamilton and Voltron at 11-12. Really the whole reason I found out about Hetalia was through Country Humans actually. I used to really love country Humans, was always on the amino, but so much terrible shit happened in that fandom and now I only occasionally draw it. Though what I wish more then anything ATM is to have some people around my age to talk about it, which isn't really possible. Just wanted to end it here and say this video taught me a lot and I hope someone makes an iceburg video using the iceburg chart you showed.

girlll, i was just here to re-live my teenage years and remember all the fandoms i was into and you hit EVERYTHING i cant believe how deep i was into all this lol

I've been in hetalia for about 2 month's or so and I've never heard about the things about you'll talked until i watched this video and i agree with so much you say. The fandom is definitely different form the manga/anime or comic strip.

YESSS thank you for making this 🙏

Holy crap, where do I begin as someone in the fandom since 2008. 1) Active on livejournal, Holy crap it was tumblr before tumblr. Like most fandoms in Livejournal, there is a spesific site called Hetalia Kink, where we submit any requests anonymously for a situation between two characters and people would write fanfics or draw fan art as a response. Now it isn't without fault, the most infamous entry of this Hetalia Kink had a doujinshi that is pretty explicit with the concept of everyone blaming America for the financial crash resulting in a "way to pay back" without America's consent. That says it all, and somehow people still wanted more of that but luckily those requests were shot down by other members as well. 2) About Kolko, I agree. When she got to the bit of saying Japan did apologize and she didn't get why the Koreans was butthurt over Hetalia is glossing over the friction Koreans and Japanese have for each other. It is also glossing over the WW2 war crimes caused by Imperial Japan, just dismissing it as oh it is so long ago, forgive and forget. Those were our Grandparents or Great- Grandparents and that is just disrespectful to someone like me, who might I add, if it wasn't for my Grandmother who went into hiding to escape being a comfort woman, I wouldn't be here today. 3) I don't think Hima had intentions to potray Japanese Nationalism. The comic strip where China raised Japan had a certain bit which was left out by the anime, about Japan giving the scar on China's back. In fact if he did intended to portrayJapan in a nationalistic light, he would have made Japan pretty flawless but nope, we got an awkward, introverted and otaku Japan. 4) I have stayed this long to finally have my nation in the Hetalia Canon, YAY! (Malaysia. Yes most of us in the Malaysian fandom love his design and the love- hate realationship with Singapore, accurate.) 5) I remembered for some reason we had people who went to conventions dressed as WW2 accurate uniforms for the Axis powers. I remembered majority of us felt uncomfortable and refused to take photos with them, especially since most of us Hetalia coplayers were Chinese and one dude was dressed as a Kenpeitai. Kinda awkward. Over all I had good and bad experiences with the Hetalia fandom! This brought back the cosplaying days which I don't do anymore due to work, but it is nice to revisit the ye olde fandom, the good the bad and the ugly.

Who else had a group of friends in middle school that were all assigned countries and went by your country name

Thank you algorithm gods for this!!! Hetalia technically got me into anime. My best friend/ crush at the time showed me clips and memes and I got really into it. I’d say over half of my deviantart page is old Hetalia doodles. It was formative for me in middle school, and It’s probably going to stay in that little folder in the back of my head. But it was definitely nice to watch this and be affirmed that “hey there’s other people out there who had a similar experience and is talking about it”. Thank you! Also I would like to thank Hetalia for motivating me to memorize flags, countries and geography. None of my peers can do that.

I quite enjoyed your video, I only really got into the hetalia fandom in 2020(My older sister showed me) and in many ways it helped me through some very tough times. I'm so glad I was spared of the early drama. Hetalia got me into writing, gave inspiration for my art, and left me with very positive experience. As much as I hate to admit it it changed my life. However as a fan I can say hetalia fandom is fucked up and after joining it I have received more hate in these past 2 years than my entire life. Love the cosplay, love the video, honesty this really what I needed.

I still can't believe how OBSESSED I was with Antonio (Spain). And I mean real unhealthy obsession. At one point I had real problems because of it - I didn't want to go to school (or anywhere else) because I'd rather watch edits with Spain on yt or read fanfics about him. My whole world revolved around him. I also loved spamano at first, but then I got super jealous of Romano lol. Oh, and I hated Belgium with burning passion. I still feel bad about mean comments that I've send to spabel shippers. Those were the crazy times.

I have such a love hate relationship with hetalia and I hate the fact I’m currently hyperfixated on it. 😭

Oh, Hetalia for me is just full of happy memories as it was one of the anime that I have watched in my early years of getting into anime. I sort of left Hetalia when I was seventeen I would say? Then just recently returned like, this year. I love the characters, most especially England and America. Do I think I will ever leave this fandom? I don't think I can escape 😅😅. I mean I thought I left years ago but here I am returning like some prodigal child. I especially love how you analyze the areas as to why Hetalia is controversial. Am I sad that its popularity has dwindled? Oh definitely, but when the latest season came out I just burst into joy. Who would have thought, it's the fandom that until now I hold close to my heart.

I was big on Hetalia back in the day and I still love it! It made me love history and is honestly partially the reason why I plan to go into Archaeology after college! I was always the one type who was interested in seeing/making ocs of ancient civilizations lol I never really posted anything but it did help me get a fascination with the ancient past! I also blame hetalia for getting me into my current main fandom of The Fate series lol. Hetalia was also one of the reasons I made my closest irl friend, so I don think my life would have been the same without it.