Hetalia Is Weirdly Good 

don't you love it when you are depressed about a Hetalia episode, only for your pain to be interrupted by Italy's demonic dance sequence?

Me: America's stereotypes aren't even that accurate. *I say as I eat food simply out of boredom* Edit: its been 2 years, why does my most liked comment have to be accurate cringe :(

Hetalia is literally five minutes of complete historical nonsense. I watch it to make me feel better. It works, try whe you're sad.

I feel like it's worth adding that the fandom years ago was cringy and awful, but now is a bit more mature as most old hetalia fans moved on to some.. worse fandoms.

you forgot one historical reference in the first episode after Germany got everyone's attention he explains how they will bring up questions, and says "raise your hand in a fashion that does not offend my country's past" meaning the Nazi salute

The Davie episode is the best example for the outro *not needing to exist*

I actually like the whole confusing illogical narrative part. That's what made it so great, and that's how I feel when I study history anyways.

Honestly, Hetalia was better at motivating me to learn world history than school. In school I never felt like I had the time to care what happened and how it mattered to the countries involved, just get the homework over with and memorize enough facts and year numbers for a passing grade. By the time I discovered Hetalia, I had already been an anime watcher for a while, graduated high school and was in college majoring in something unrelated to history. I understood a few jokes, and then actually went out of my way to look up other historical events referenced, which made me realize and get even more of the jokes! Hetalia is not a directly educational show, but can indirectly educational. It doesn't teach you history, but can make you *want* to learn it.

The amount of comics in the actual webcomic is impossible to read in one day...

the interesting thing about russia's childlike character is that im reading a book about the cultural history of russia and most of the people mentioned in it had a childish attachment to their youth and it greatly affected their adult life

2018: rise of Fortnite 2019: revival of Minecraft Also 2019: rise of Countryhumans 2020: revival of Hetalia??

I'm crying this is my favorite show ever this actually cured my depression I remember not wanting to get up then hearing their voices in my head to urge me forward to continue with life

So 2 years ago I read a doujinshi on youtube. I was like "I refuse to believe that one has a name of a country.". The first time I watched Hetalia I felt confused. Hetalia repeat scenes so many times and 5 minutes long episode??? Really??? And the plot is....really random that the last episode of a season gives no touching thing. I planned to stop watching but the problem is ... I couldn't. And then I noticed myself already finished 4 seasons. And a movie.... (Not really a movie.) Then I watched the 5th one. Wow,artstyle revolution. I cried on Davie. Then finished all six,get to the fandom (lol) and here I am. *Summary* : Hetalia isn't anime or cartoon. Hetalia is Hetalia. Category : Hetalia. Which consume life and soul. All praised Hima papa. The end. Edit : By the way,how could I forget to mention that Hetalia is actually about 3 anti-democratic villians trying to conquer the world by attacking their neighbours?

Girl, this diserves at least 100,000 views. What really makes Hetalia special is the characters. Every character has been through some serious hardships and they've still gotten through it all.

me to myself: im not gonna get upset just because someone else has a perfectly valid albeit different opinion from me. “Hetalia is-“ also me: ok first off who do you think you are?

"Y O U R G R A N D M A S O U N D S H O T " pops up in my head whenever the catch scene comes up

Honestly, all of these points are valid. I have been in this dumpster fire of a fandom for a total of... it'll be 7 years this year and I go back and watch the show every now and again just for how ridiculous it can get. My favorite line has to be in season 5 when Switzerland and Austria have an exchange and Austria is like "So is it cozy being up Germany's asshole?" in reference to the Swiss, while being neutral the entire time during WWII, were selling supplies to whoever paid the most, Germany being the most frequent customer. When I first watched it I about died because a) that was an abrupt line, even for this kind of show, and b) it's funny because it's true. In the end, it's all about stereotypes and pretty boys (and girls. Hungary bby ilu). It's dumb humor about history that I can get into. While the personifications being pretty anime boys and girls is an odd choice and leads to some interesting conversations when asked "oh that's an interesting fact, where'd you learn that??", it's definitely something that history nerds can get behind. If it weren't for this dumb show, I probably wouldn't be into history and learning about cultures as much as I am, so I have to give it credit.

I’m not sure how or when you came across this, as this show is years old now. I was watching this when I was much younger. The fandom isn’t dead, but very quiet with a multilingual video here or there. The show is good though, to me. In later seasons, it’s allowed to expand and have more jokes. It’s supposed to be silly and offensive. The creator has gotten many death threats. But the countries themselves are hilarious. I’ll admit that the rescued footage in the first season is soooo annoying. Later season don’t do it. I just love how flashy and silly it can be. I found this as a young teen, so I loved it. It’s nostalgic for me now.

Wow nice video! Shame it doesn't have more views...

I love hetalia but I know it’s hell

Hetalia is what had gotten me into history in the 6th grade and I was that screaming 13 year old for a while but I am honestly grateful I was exposed to it because it made my most hated class my favorite and best subject. Hetalia is bad, yes, but it's premise alone is perfect for the tired history student who needs an easy way to remember countries and their history, and I owe a lot to it.

"Davie?" *cuts to Italy's hellish dancing*

'The show I struggle to call good even though I deeply enjoy it' I know exactly how you feel

As an American, the America character is so spot on. I just learned there’s a country called Belize today. And yesterday I remembered that Maryland is actually a state. Hell, I thought Boston was a state. I only discovered this series because I was researching how America is viewed and didn’t watch anything that wasn’t America-related until I ran out of episodes with America in it.

Wow! I was honestly blown away by the quality of this freaking video- you got me good at some points, especially at the beginning with the "hot anime boys" (couldn't be more accurate). You made clear, strong statements and I was nodding my head at every turn, and I was intrigued and you kept the video moving and interesting. As a fellow Hetalian, I really, really have to agree that the countries themselves is what makes this anime so lovable, rather than the animation or the 'plot.' Anyways, amazing. I loved this! Keep up the awesome work, and keep being yourself- it was stunning!

Gosh, this brought back a lot of memories for me. I first got into Hetalia in 2010, and it quickly became my main fandom for a good number of years before I finally moved on to other things. I still have an incredible fondness for the series, though. Even though it is an incredibly flawed series, as you mentioned, what I think saves it and makes it something truly worthwhile is the characters and the sheer amount of potential in the series' core concept. Heck, if you look back at the first early strips (and even some of the earlier episodes of the anime, to an extent), to the ones published in last few years, some of the characters are almost completely unrecognizable from who they used to be, since Himaruya has changed and developed them so much. I completely understand why Himaruya keeps the series predominantly comedic, but honestly, I *live* for the more serious strips and episodes the series has done. Those brief, tiny moments where the curtain is pulled back a little and we see that these characters aren't just one-dimensional cardboard cutouts that act out historical events in a vacuum; they're people, too, with their own thoughts, feelings, and opinions, separate from their citizens and their bosses, and the life of a personified nation is honestly a lonely, bittersweet, and hard one. That realization lends the characters a sense of depth and reliability that helps you really connect and sympathize with them. And all the characters are sympathetic in some way; no one is "the designated bad guy," everyone has their strengths and their weaknesses and their silly moments, and it really helps drive home the point that at the end of the day, everyone is just as human as everyone else. And I like that. For a series that is so ostensibly focused on comedy and national stereotypes, it shows a surprising amount of nuance. Plus, that muted tone of bittersweetness underlying everything in the series is a perfect jumping off point for the fans to explore more serious topics and historical events in their fanworks that the series itself wouldn't dare touch. Sure, some people can take it way too far in the other direction, but in the right hands, it can be an incredibly effective way to explore history and really bring it to life in a way that few other concepts have managed. As the old saying goes "One death is a tragedy, a million is just a statistic." What better way to show that then by showing how historical events affect a character you already love that also happens to represent an entire country? So yeah, all that to say, I really do love how funny and tongue-in-cheek the series is, but I also love how versatile the concept can be, how much room there is to expand upon it and the characters themselves, and how effective it is in making people curious about history and other cultures than perhaps they wouldn't be otherwise. I already loved history before discovering Hetalia, but I love it far, far more now and learned so much more than I probably would have had I not stumbled across it back in the day. :) Thanks for the analysis and for the video. Have a good one!

"You naughty wizard boy!" -France(Francis)

10:48 -what about Canada-

I love hetalia and this helps me of geography

wow i didnt know why i procrastinated on watching this for so long.... thank you for explaining everything so on point, this was a very rich and thoughtful analysis!! this is literally perfect, subbed

Hetalia is the reason I'm emotional in History Class

Hetalia is weirdly good! Your video is great. It's a shame that here in Brazil, few people even know Hetalia, there is no one in my country who could talk about the anime like you did, and so good like that. Thanks for talking about Hetalia ^^

I actually really liked America and England’s relationship and how America was portrayed as seeing England as an idol, only to want freedom which England saw as abandonment. This was a great depiction of the American Revolution and I leaned a lot more about history with Hetalia than at school

Another downside to Hetalia is the toxic fandom (which has calmed down) but the shipping wars were hell.

Hetalia is in nETFLIX?!

I *just* started watching Hetalia, and as a history nerd, I’m so ridiculously in love. This analysis perfectly explained why I love it and pointed out a lot of details I hadn’t noticed haha!

Very true-to-the-point analysis. It definitely has its flaws (my god, Italy, that dance is so bad) but the playing with history and overall comedic theme makes it enjoyable. The dramatic moments are, granted, very out of the ordinary, but I honestly wish there were more of them... and from I've read from the actual webcomic, the number of those moments is starting to really grow... not a ton, but a little bit. I await the day the anime focuses on the War of 1812 skits because those are some of my recent favorites and the tension, albeit being silly, is clearly there. This series thrives best in those set-ups, probably because everyone can understand war because it happened/happens everywhere.

I agree, the dub is amazing. But in regards to emotional moments, the sub is the way to go. Best example is, again, the Davie episode. While there is barely any dialogue, the voice for chibi-America sounds too old when he says Davie's name, so it kind of breaks the illusion a bit. Other than that, though, dub all the way!

I thought is was absolute trash when I first found out about it. For years, I avoided it and scoffed at Hetalia fans but I eventually decided to check it out for myself. I ended up genuinely enjoying the show. It wasn’t nearly as horrible as I once thought. It was the first time that had happened to me-Enjoying an anime I originally disliked before even watching it. It lead to me trying out anime I didn’t like which was actually a really good thing. An example of another anime I used to dislike was Haikyuu.

Making jokes about history helps me remember the event more. But yes Hetalia does has problems. Great job!

I have been trying to convince my bestie to watch this show for months. I think this video will work!

Tbh I wish Mexico was there, although it would most likely be like Italy and his brother due to how the north and south being different. Hetalia is one of my favorite anime although my mom isn't fond of Germany due to its history. It's interesting to see its flaws since I've never really noticed them (how? I don't know myself 😅). I'm so glad I found this in my recommended great video 😊.

I remember watching the first skit and needing like five minutes to process the "PASTAAA~" thing

i watched the show when i was younger so the flaws kind of just flew over my show and i enjoyed the show for what it was, a comedy anime. i imagine watching it now i would find the flaws annoying. damn i kinda miss my old mindset lol

I actually thought the sibling relationships made a lot of sense. England is America's older brother and surragate dad because the USA was started by British immigrants and America fought against England for its independence. England has a similar influence over Canada, with the exception that Canada is still part of the British Commonwealth. France is also an older brother surragate dad for Canada, and America but to a lesser extend, because French settlers partially created Canada, Canada has a French province, and France helped America fight for its independence. As Canada and America were created around the same time as each other, and founded/heavily influenced by the same countries, it makes sense that they're depicted as brothers. Ukraine and Belarus are Russia's younger sisters because both of those countries used to be part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Culturally, there are still a lot of similarities between all three of these countries. Prussia is Germany's free-loading brother because Prussia was a German state that was part of the Holy Roman Empire. And doesn't exist anymore, hence the free-loading. England, Scotland, and Wales are all brothers because they're all part of the United Kingdom. And gotta say, I love that Hetalia makes sure to emphasize the differenee between England and the other parts of the the UK. A lot of the older and younger sibling dynamics depict the history of colonized countries or newer countries that split off from older countries. And shows the influence the colonizing countries still have over their former colonies. And/or the sibling relationships show countries that are fairly similar culturally and border each other. It's a fun way to learn history and geography. Historically, it would more sense for Denmark to be depicted as Iceland's older brother instead of Norway, but I'm pretty sure they're all considered family in Hetalia. Personally, I love that Austria-Hungary was depicted as a marriage between Austria and Hungary, and presumably a divorce when the country split up. And that the Soviet Union was depicted as Russia forcing a bunch of countries to live in his house, because honestly that's a pretty good metaphor for it.

The humor and craziness is what won me over. The show got me interested in world history and it made me want to learn more. I remember I took this American History class in high school and being a fan of the series made it way more enjoyable than it would have been if I wasn’t. I don’t think it’s supposed to be taken too seriously, hence the comedy. It’s strange to hear it described in complete detail when in summary it’s just someone who was just like “hey, what if countries were human stereotypes?” So he wrote several comic strips about it and then it became super popular, then resulted in an anime. It nice to see someone critic it because yeah it’s not perfect, but overall I think I think it does a good job at catching your attention, the animation is good, and THE DUB. OH GOSH THE DUB IS HILARIOUS. And I think the show runners are good at balancing character storylines but it’s hard when the comics do the same bits over and over in the same location sometimes.

The Hetalia anime is the only anime that is the exact same as the "manga". The manga is basically a first draft, the anime is the cleanup version lol

Hetalia is basically drunk history class.

This is exactly how I feel about this show!. Also will ever review on the hetalia move?

Some of the countries being siblings, or just family in general, does actually make sense in a way. There are enough cultural and historical relations between countries that are related in Hetalia that it doesn't even register as weird to me. If they can consider some countries enemies, why can't they consider other countries family?

i started dying when the Italy dancing part came on

funimation is banned in my country T_T

*When germany was basically your 3rd and 7th grade teacher in a nutshell except much meaner* She was also German herself but we're gonna ignore that part-

By the way, who the hell is Canada?

I love hetalia, it sure have it flaws, but the characters make up for it.

Worth the wait! Awesome job!

Now im 22 and i realised that not everyone had a hetalia phase and not everyone loves history as much as i do after that phase

Hetalia is the only fandom we can't escape from no matter what we do...... Believe me i tried leaving

HUNGARY BEST GIRL!!!

i dont think the four almost exactly the same episodes of hetalia bothered me all that much, mainly bc each episode is only 5 minutes long. but when a show, whos episodes are 30 minutes each, repeats the same 8 episodes, word for word, scene by scene, i quit. (im looking at you haruhi suzumiya) btw this is a really good video!!

Princess Jellyfish is beautiful. I also think Hetalia's dub is good, but Japan not being to use l is too much for me.

Ah, this brings back memories of being obsessed with Hetalia back in high school along with my friend. I view this as good memory due to not interacting with the fandom much aside from artists focusing on historical scenes. Also let me tell you. This series is such a joy for someone attenting advanced history class in Poland. Which, if you've ever heard about education system there, you know they like to teach us everything for whatever reason. So we'd just learn about history of so many countries that it wasn't hard to remember the context to many events portrayed in Hetalia. Heck, the series made some fact easier to remember (Example. The Teutonic Order was known for having built many mills during its early years of existence. Quite helpful to remember by adding the headcanon that Prussia's hair is so white because he was born in a pile of flour. Also explains the red eyes.) One thing that always bothered me though was lack of Poland and Hungary content. Like, we've literally been best friends forever.

Hetalia is in my top 20 favorite anime if not top ten. It's SOOOOO hilarious for a history and geopolitics nerd like me XD

*What happened to the smol bean* *Y'know* *Canada* I think i know the reason cause Canada is a very peaceful country and wasn't really in any BIG wars so it's understandable that it wouldn't be in Hetalia much, bUT C'MON EVERYBODY LOVES CANADA-

It's crazy to think I was in middle school when I started watching Hetalia. I'm a freshman in college now, and these characters still come to mind sometimes when I see something as simple as their names. As cringeworthy as the show has been sometimes, it probably influenced me more than I realize and I still keep coming back. Haven't watched the show itself for a while, but I've gotten back into the fandom stuff, ironically enough. Perhaps I'll have to find time to watch it all again haha. Either way, this was a great video. I know I'm a couple years late, but seriously, good stuff. It's refreshing/interesting to see someone outline the flaws with this show because it can be hard to decipher what's good or bad in a show that gets as nonsensical as this one does. I've learned to just accept that it's not great, but I still enjoy it :). The Hungary reaction pics were hilarious as well!

Hetalia is... when you can make someone cry like the Niagara Falls with saying just a name.

Thanks for nice video! And I love eng dubbed hetalia too!

My heart! It's been so long!:')) I feel like most of my enjoyment came from the fandom funnily enough. (Guess i'm just a natural at avoiding discourse). I liked the show but i honestly liked the comics more since there was just... more of it. Also it made the show make a bit more sense. I think in the end i liked the concept more than the actual show but I'm glad i saw it. This is a really nice review!:D

I haven’t seen much of Hetalia, but it always amused me how dark and gritty and achingly realistic the fan content was compared to the actually show.

As an Australian I laughed way too hard when I met Australia I kept thinking how great it was to see my countries stereotype and how I had the same hair and eye colour as him

After watching Hetalia, I got weirdly good at remembering the flags for most of the countries...

This shit taught me more history than my teachers 💀 Also they need to get off that island I got so annoyed when the island came up

Lithuania os my favourite charater cause.. He is so cute and carring for others.

The way you explained everything was perfect. I was trying to explain Hetalia to my friends but could only describe it as confusing but sometimes funny. This is so accurate to how I feel about the show!

hetalia walked so hamilton could run

When you, when you're Canadian and you're constantly forgotten by other people 😰

Hetalia actually made me understand geography more. I found out that there's actually A LOT of countries I don't know about after watching the show

This video just wouldn't leave my recommended page, so I finally clicked on it. Worth it! I like this analysis, your reasoning is.. well reasonable! And the overall video what enjoyable! Kudos!

you finally put it into words!!! Thank you so much for this video 😊 I have never been able to explain why I come back to hetalia but this..... this really hit the nail on the head!

I recently started rewatching hetalia (which is why this is in my recommendations). It took me back to when times were genuinely simple. Small things like the beautiful world ending song and Germany yelling makes me somehow feel better. It’s just a great show that can make you stop thinking about the bad times.

Being a fan of Hetalia when I was younger, and now as a fan of streamers, hetalia got the America/England interactions spot on. Whenever American & British streamers are in a voice chat together it rlly devolves to that exact level of passive-aggression (with sometimes more genuine aggression from British people) or straight up love-hate lmao

I though it was kinda funny that the voice actor for Greece couldn’t do a proper Greek accent, so he just whispered.

If only I could show this to my class in my history subject.. (especially that we're almost to WW2 history topic) Am I watching Anime America? lol why do u always use Hungary? you got nice editing also! one thing you forgot about the fandom is the... musical :D (I had too much edits in this XD)

It's no exaggeration, Italy really didn't do much help in WWII. Check historical context.

I am a huge fan of Hetalia. I fan girl over America and Japan mostly. Good work on this video! I hope you do more. 👍🏻

when I heard of hetalia, all I ever heard was just it’s cancerous fanbase, which is pretty much why I never really touched the anime. then, one day I got curious and watched a ‘hetalia funny moments’ video that got in my recommended and I was hooked instantly. I watched all the episode dubbed (in my opinion, the accents in the dub make it even more enjoyable) and now I’m obsessed. I feel like I could’ve enjoyed this even more if I were younger because I always wondered how countries would act if they were people. when I learned that this anime was based around that, that’s why I was intrigue. tbh, I like animes that have a dark tone and deal with irl problems or go deep into certain topics, but what I really liked how the anime took a controversial topic and made light out of it in a good way. another reason why I liked it, as you said in the vid, is because the stereotypes are perfect and written well so it wasn’t offensive. yes, the anime has its flaws with strange storyline and progression and lazy animation, and of course some of the older fandom (hopefully most of it calmed down), but I just really love this anime for its humor and how enjoyable it really is.

i was super into hetalia as an early teen. i fell out of it after a few years but it never really left me, seeing as very recently i started drawing fanart for it once again just because some i followed drew some fanart themself. i still really love the characters and the character songs so, so much. it'll always have a special place in my heart.

The way you layered it out was really good so that all options are satisfied

If you're insterested in seeing more comedies with personified countries, I highly recommend the webcomic Scandinavia and the World. Bonus points for it mostly avoiding WWII expect for the rare comic strip (and even then, none of the main characters were part of the Axis Powers, so it still manages to avoid the pitfalls that Hetalia fell into).

Honestly the sporadic storytelling and jumping around so much does absolute *wonders* for my adhd and attention span. I know that’s not most people, but for some reason it just works really well for me~

how are you 15 at the time of making this video the script is brilliant, im aspire to make such quality video someday!

I discovered hetalia when I was a 17-year-old guy, never stopped watching it

I’m very late to this vid, but it was very well put together! My good friend used to watch Hetalia as a kid and I wanted to understand more about it. There are some things I still don’t understand, and it primarily centers around the idea of this personification. Having the plot center around the WWII era seems like a story backdrop that was set up to fail. The plot simultaneously acknowledges the war, but won’t explicitly mention any negative aspects from it, inadvertently giving the show a slight tone deaf feeling. The fandom has had issues in the past with young people cosplaying as Nazi characters, a consequence of media with no explicit anti-hate themes. Since comedy is primary and education is secondary (even tertiary) the darker parts of history seem to become inconvenient plot points rather than the intertwined complex issues they were. Which begs the question, why set the plot here? The stereotypes of the countries also aren’t entirely equal. The show has had many criticisms lobbed towards it, another being the theme of nationalism some viewers tend to pick up on. The authors portrayal of South Korea in his works is a striking misunderstanding of history. With respect to the show alone, Japan in the archived material I found is described as a “quiet, serious, warrior nation” - Japan’s stereotyped flaws acknowledge a few historical defeats, but overall frame the character more ideally relative to the others. As an adult, I don’t think I’d be able to separate my discomfort with what the show is trying to portray, but your essay very clearly laid out some reasons why others could enjoy it. A part of me worries the plot trivializes history and the tragedies that occur, while another part of me is relieved it wasn’t touched. All this to say, I really loved listening to your thoughts and thinking through my own feelings on the series!

1:06 Well, it really depends on wich one you wach. Cuz there is Hetalia Axis Powers - focussing on the Axis And there is Hetalia World Series - focusing more on the rest of the characters

I love how the animation got better but then they threw us the Italy Demon Dance.

Historically, Italy had become weaker as time progressed due to internal conflicts (Before WW1, thing had gotten to a point that the Italian government was have elections with US 2016 election tension roughly every 3 months. The siblings thing has to do with how the countries developed, often with countries either having had similar influences (North Italy and South Italy, Russia and his sisters, US and Canada) or having had a huge amount of influence over another (China and Japan, France and Canada, England and US)

It has weird gay sexual tension and sexual jokes that I don't remember.

I see your point for some things and the way you explained everything was very respectful to the people who love this show I agree it is random in the first two seasons but thats what made it intresting for me too watch I watch it because of the humor. Plus I am also a big history nerd so I love it because of that also!

I love the way you describe the countries, it’s somehow really endearing to me😂😊

HETALIA SEASON 7 LETSSSS GOOOOOOOOOOO🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥