Looking back at Hetalia: Axis Powers and the fandom! - CHC w/  

This is my favorite video of yours with absolutely no bias whatsoever

Maybe the real Hetalia was the fever dreams we hallucinated along the way.

When I was younger I remember that I used hetalia in order to understand my history class. I couldn't visualize the wars or conflicts so being able to imagine the personifications fighting about the issues helped me understand

Hetalia got me to win a naming countries contest in world history bc no one else in my class knew what Liechtenstein, Estonia, or Seychelles were real places, but omg I remember having like 3 hetalia shirts n actually wearing them to middle school afghfghdhj

How did hetalia influence me? Well now I have a master’s in history so there’s that…All jokes aside it made me realize that I can make history and research fun, digestible, and presentable which is something the American education system just doesn’t do.

Beautiful world was a huge turn on the animation style

I don't know what hurts more; being catapulted down memory lane of being in the cosplay/rp side of Hetalia and those horror stories or being reminded of how many hours I'd spend at the library doing the research I needed to feel competent *being part of* the Hetalia community. Either way it jump started a love of history that has consumed almost every aspect of my life. So uh. Thanks for that, guys. What a blursed trip down memory lane

God, I remember that hetalia is the reason why I remember micronations are a thing.

Germany and Japan are not shown being perfect either. Germany is said and shown to be so obsessed with rules and discipline that he literally can't do anything on his own and relies on instructions and guidebooks even for everyday life activities. He takes that to the extreme that he'd put his life at risk if instructions are wrong/dangerous (there's a strip where he's about to crash his car against a wall just because he's following the indications shown on the car navigator screens which had obsolete maps - tragedy is avoided by ITALY who, unlike Germany, is able to think on the spot and out of the box to preserve his own safety). Japan is shown to be excessively stuck in his old ways, constantly walks on a thin line between appreciation and criticism of foreigners and tends to avoid being honest with what he says in order to avoid confrontation. He was also shown being an overly sensitive reclusive during his isolationism period, and is also an obsessive otaku - which aren't traits the average Japanese person would love about their representation. He's also subtly accused of having betrayed his traditional roots in order to conform to globalization and is always conflicted about these two parts of his nature (this is underlined by the fact that he can no longer see his own folklore creatures such as the Yokai, and one of his character songs is about him trying to fit in in Western society by hiding what the West may dislike about his Country). Italy, on the other hand, is shown to have redeeming qualities as well. Besides the aforementioned self-preserving ability that makes him actually a better thinker than Germany, he's incredibly talented in arts and cooking and his poor skills at war are implied to be partially caused by a few personal traumas he had. He has a phobia of ending up alone with no one on his side and everyone hating him, and lost the two people he loved the most due to war (his grandfather, the ancient Roman Empire, died due to having gotten too big and hungry for power, and the boy he liked when he was little - the representation of the Holy Roman Empire - also died in war after refusing to listen to Italy and stop craving the power Roman Empire soccumbed to). Turkey also mentions once that he was beaten by Italy when he was a kid (this is a reference to some battle between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice), and Germany himself is surprised to hear that his apparently stupid friend has such an inner strength. This proves that Italy pretends to be bad at war simply because it brings back very bad memories for him on a personal level. Hetalia Personifications aren't all stereotypes, they also have a side where they're just characters and don't necessarily reflect what the average person of a said time period from their land would think, nor do they reflect their governments. In fact, "bosses/superiors" (aka: the people in charge of government) exist in Hetalia, and Country Personifications can't go against their decisions whether they support them or not (speaking of which, there's a strip set in WW2 where Germany expresses a negative opinion about his leader, and is also shown to be threatened if he doesn't comply with what is asked of him - this is a theme occurring in other strips too, for instance there's one where Russia is forced by the Tzar to shoot people who were protesting before the Russian Revolution).

Can’t believe y’all didn’t show him the cannon female au, the female designs were just 😭😭😭 I can’t

I've been Into Hetalia for 6 years now, and I'm still stuck here lol though watching this video did give me some nostalgia of when I got into Hetalia for the first time haha

Also King talking about HetaOni reminds me of the plethora of hetalia fangames that existed on dA back in the day, god…

Interestingly enough, I think that the later seasons are much more tastefully done, at least to an extent. They explore the more interesting lore of hetalia, such as how they’re immortality effects them. I also actually found out recently that when the author started Hetalia, he was 21 years old, so although not excusable, maybe take that with a grain of salt. As someone who started hetalia after it had died, it’s interesting to see older fans remiss on what happened, but I think the smaller fandom nowadays is much more contained and… I guess a nicer place to be in? The side of hetalia fans who are there primarily for the historical exploration is MUCH bigger, I think. Thanks for the video!

Hetalia had a big au community that reminds me of another fandom that also has a big au community : Megalovania plays:

Aww, you should have talked about the Human!AU :O Basically, a huge portion of the fandom would write (still writes) fanfictions where the characters, instead of being Country representations, are simply people coming from the Country they represent. This AU is the reason why their canon human names are still heavily used by fans despite being basically never brought up in the anime or manga. The Human!AU branches in every kind of genre and sub-AUs, going from the AUs set in High School or College (canon Gakuen!AU still has them as Countries, whereas most fanon Gakuen material has them as humans), to the Historical AUs which can get pretty gruesome and angsty and are typically set in one of the periods canon Hetalia focuses mostly on. Also, the cliché of Hetalia fanfics (especially smutty ones but not necessarily) that has them as Countries being set during World Meetings. You can find THOUSANDS of these fics where the Countries are supposed to be working at World Conferences but instead end up just being stupid/flirting/doing stuff with each other.

Hetalia honestly did help me understand history alot better. It was my worst subject cause i had a hard time conceptualizing what was happening. So to have the concept be broken down into what was basically countries in youtube make up drama made it make more sense in early high school lol.

I’m surprised you didn’t bring up the 2p hetalia characters, that was a big part of the fandom too

Hetalia was the main reason I passed my history classes and the sole reason I took French in high school

oh god, i was deep, DEEP in the hetalia fandom when i was 12. made a statesona, made fanart, made bad weird fanfics, roleplayed a hetalia character that only existed in mentioning on deviantart, the whole shebang. this is gonna be a weird time watching this video lmao

Hetalia made me binge watch Russian history documentaries, it was a wild time in 2011

I'm suprised that the character sings wasn't mentioned

Found y’all’s clip on TikTok, great video lmao

God I had highschool friends who got most of their WWII knowledge from hetaila and bragged about it to our history teacher. It was wild

Imploding at the pronunciation of seychelles lol

i was born in 2008 and joined the hetalia fandom a month ago, so watching this is kinda strange to me. i really like the show cuz its hilarious and i also love history, i did some resarch and its crazy to know what was going on in the fandom when i was just a toddler, but im glad the fandoms chill now and i can enjoy the show without any problems regarding its reputation even cause in my country its not so well known

And yes history was my favorite subject cause of hetalia 😅

As an autistic person, whose history has always been a special interest (in particular ww2 when i was a child) Hetalia shocked me when i first watched it! When I was a child I had no friends and my family was abusive, the only comfort I would find was in books, and most of the time I could only borrow books from the school library. Since I was deeply traumatized I would find anything "funny" or for children too childish for me (mind you, i was like 8 yo when i read my first historical book: Cuore by Edmondo de Amicis ), so I'd gravitated more towards tragedies. As an Italian, we study worldwide history since childhood, (fun fact, my wish was to have studied the whole story of the world once finished elementary school) so I kinda always knew about stuff and that allowed me to always learn more. I don't remember how I found out about Hetalia, I had it downloaded it on my pc during my huge anime binge back in 2014, Hetalia was fun 'cus while I watched it I was "omg someone knows even more than me about history" (and also 'cus it's actually so funny how accurate italy's feelings towards hre are, like italians always cry when its bought up) It was also interesting seeing someone else's perspective abt ww2, 'cus all the books I read were always from Italy's perspective (more about the Partisans than anything else) but, since my family is from the south and i've always lived in Genoa (The city that freed itself a day before the allies arrived, thanks to the resistance) all i kept thinking was "UHH ITALY WOULD NEVER ADORE GERMANY" (3 years ago my mind changed when i heard a german person try speaking italian with their accent and I feel in love with it, like literally my thoughts were "omfg i understand you Italy") I also really shipped Spamano 'cus it made so much sense linked to my family's history, and also the italian fics are >>> I remember asking my grandma what she thought about the unification of italy and her thoughts abt the spanish colonization, and it was actually funny when her views were the same depicted in Romano/South Italy (apart from the fact that she adores Spain and its culture, she even learned spanish by watching lots of soap operas) Now Im at my first year in university and I guess I needed some comfort, thats why i started a rewatch and this video popped up! I guess Hetalia was a huge part of accepting myself through my favorite characters (like Romano, being southern italian and living in the north can be tough even ignoring the bullying due to darker skin and dialect, and seeing so many people loving him made me proud of my heritage), i also started to keep a diary inspired by Prussia! Nowadays I'm trying to not be ashamed of my interests and hobbies and I guess coming back to Hetalia is part of the process, I'm going to therapy and trying my best! Another "fun" fact is that when I had panic attack/meltdowns the only thing that would make me stop crying was Chibitalia's marukaite chikyuu (the ending song) and thats why I still know it by heart. Also after finishing the video I'm going to say that the characters actually had more fleshed out personalities, like German and Japan had flaws and Italy had qualities too, just not "the useful in a war" type. I also could write an essay abt how ridicolous Italy (irl) was in both the wars and the reasons why but thats not the place T^T I'm 20 now and i see how some things were/are very problematic or questionable but the historical side of the fandom will always hold a special place in my heart, above all when in high school i'd skip russian classes to go read hetalia fics by the sea, i will never forget that feeling. Thank you random stranger who read all of these ramblings on a video abt hot countries anime boys

You started talking about Heta-Oni and I went SPIRILING omg how did I forget! There was this HUGE animation about it I watched all the time, I wasn't even that into Hetalia but I liked Ao Oni and the plot explained through that music video(?) Was amazing

I'm surprised there wasn't any mention 2p! Hetalia au in the Au's part. I knew it was very popular due to the uh fanfiction and fanart. It was so edgy and murdery.

Hetalia gave 10-year old me an interest in history, literally the only good thing abt hetalia 💀 lord my 7 years in the fandom will forever traumatize me 💀💀

31:36 not to be that guy but turkey was a canon character

I never knew any of this was a thing because I didn’t have internet as a kid, I heard some friends in class talk about it, it sounded funny and I love history so I watched it. I only learned of it’s eh “reputation,” recently,

Hetalia gave me the title of the history kid in school...like the entirety of school. We had a workshop about german history and i answered so many questions about it..i was the only person to get a special mention....like this show and changed me

34:30 fun fact: right after this, I googled “Oklahoma Hetalia” and while I did not get this image, I got someone’s Texas-sona that legitimately looks exactly like Yosh(?). Like the exact same shirt and hairstyle (but flipped). Actually hysterical

I still stuck in the fandom since 2010, hetalia is a only reason I choose to study about history, culture and politics in the first place, not regreting it ever

Honestly HetaOni was good and deserved to be continued 👏 deviantart was the only place you could find the download link tho

I actually joined the fandom in 2020 (and still am in it), I was bored and so I decided to watch this anime I heard my sister talk about once. Luckily I didn't have to witness everything that happened in 2009-2015!

LOVED THIS loved the Anime and the jokes

My favorite saying as a Russia cosplayer was "I kicked Germany's ass"

Part of me wants to know how they’d react to the nyotalia characters. Aka the gender bent country’s.

When i watched Hetalia, I thought the country-personas were representations of the populous in those countries or the entire land given a body to represent itself. That every time something like war or diseases happens, the human countries would get sick or have scars on their bodies. But thats was probably just the fandom’s interpretation of the country men. I would be interested if there was a 2022 version that recapped everything and gave the counties their own opinions on stuff like LGBTQ+ rights and the recent wars.

Yo, the way they started talking about Hetaoni. I started laughing SO hard!

39:00 i dont remember a lot but i think they mention the ussr as an alliance :)

oh my GODDDD the statesonas.........ur taking me out w this. as someone from a nothing state like connecticut u KNOW i had connecticut and rhode island statesonas BRO. bro u dont understand the minute king said statesona i was violently thrown back into high school sobbing crying screaming throwing up etc

Hetalia got me into French and French history 😭 it's a little embarrassing to admit as a senior abt to graduate, but hey, my french teacher isn't complaining :P im gonna minor in french too, i have to lie everytime someone asks how i got into learning it

As a person that been around in Hetalia since 2016 and is still part of the fandom. Man middle school me…. Anywho, It is still quite a fever dream. That all their points were great. Just love this as some one who grew with they internet and understand what their staying

I remember a history project where we had to make a graphic about World war II.... And I used hetalia characters.... And I'm pretty sure I told the whole class about the anime cuz they were like why tf are there anime characters 😭 I was never involved in the state sonas or anything but I knew some people who were. And this wasn't even like in 2010 this was in like 2017...

I love hearing people talk about how they consumed Japanese media when living elsewhere, and was certainly the birth of a culture in the USA. I didn't live there and wasn't quite involved, but I remember manga being sold only in that specific store. Anyway I did not know about Hetalia, so that was an interesting trip.

55:40 "when will eren jaeger be added to fortnite" uh oh

I recommend a Chinese anime ( it's technically called a dounghua) called mo dao zu shi, but it's also translated to grandmaster of demonic cultivation. It's actually a pretty interesting, and I highly recommend at least giving it a try. Especially since it's actually an Apdapttion of a popular novel. Of the same name

5:25 i wish they weren’t the country! That’s why I don’t watch/like the anime that much, I just like the fan art. I wish they were just humans from the country or plain stereotypes.

I made the mistake of looking up Hawai’i-sona and I’m hella mad. I’m fine with America but Hawai’i design was hella rude and some of the history is incorrect about Hawaii.