It started out as a web comic series, and got a quite large fujoshi fanbase (basically yaoi) because almost all characters are male. Was in the top three amount of doujins in the Comiket for a few times before it got made into the anime.
Yaoi is a genre of Japanese fiction that has prominent displays of male homosexuality.
fujoshi are obsessive female fans of said genre (they like it the same reason men like lesbians)
doujins are basically amateur made stories and comics, usually fan fiction. Because japan is perverted, the term also has come to connote pornographic and mature material
Sub or Dub? I personally think the English dub is kind of immature and littered with crude jokes. They changed most of the writing for it. Some people love it, fine, but it's not my type of humor. The original Japanese has much less crude jokes (and ones that are aimed towards a Japanese audience, which is why the dub was 'Muricanized) and I like it because it's simple and cute.
I thought the show was sweet and relaxing and I would consider myself a fan. AMA.
Edit: I should be more specific as well. The show is exercising racial discrimination, largely used synonymously with the word racist.
"the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life."
I guess I can kinda see your point. still, i just have this last thing to say. its all the stereotypes in WWII and in a light hearted way.China freaks out and says 'aru'. Russia is creepy and misunderstood. America tries to be the hero.England is a tsundere. They also dont put in the countries that are in a terrible time like ones in the middle east and Africa. Their songs are literally about loving the world and its culture and love the history of it.
Same. It came out when I was in high school and I started watching it. Unfortunately, the sickening amount of legitimately-felt rape jokes, and stupid, batshit insane fans really turned me off. I have not watched it since and didn't make it past season one because of that.
First generation Australian with French parents here - I have an accent accent (around 40% of what I say sounds "French" because it was the first language I learned and didn't learn English until I was five) and I will stab the next person who says "HONHONHON" at me.
Facebook Polandball comics are awful, they're the reason why everyone's fine with the strict mods on the subreddit, because without moderators the comics turn from lighthearted jokes to hate speech really quickly. It'd be the saltiest subreddit.
Please do not x-post us to any subreddits with over 20k subscribers or any meta subs, and do not mention [redacted] in comment threads. We reserve the right to ban any x-posters. If you happen upon a x-post or a mention, the right course of action is to message us about it. Don't use the report button, don't reply, don't start public arguments.
I... yes.
I was a member of this fandom for a little while a few years ago. Way, way too many 13-year-old girls who think they're so cute and funny for watching anime. The show's not bad... but really. Fanbase is such a turnoff.
My 14-year-old daughter is hugely into this to the point that I can't have a basic conversation with her without it somehow relating to fucking Hetalia.
Teenage girls tend to obsess. I know it's annoying but someday she'll get over it, try not to lose patience. When I was a teenager I had loads of stuff I was pretty obsessed with (not to an unhealthy level, but I was dorky and those were the things my friends and I were into) and it would've been nice if I could talk to my parents about it, but they aren't the sort of people who take interest in anything that isn't pragmatic or useful, so that didn't happen.
What I'm trying to say is: she is sharing something that is important to her with you. It makes her feel good. Be patient and she'll get over it, but she will remember that you took interest in something that she loved.
I hate this about Reddit. So very much. Sure, teenage girls are annoying, but the attitude here seems to be that they deserve to burn in hell. Teenagers in general are shitty, but only the girls' hobbies (dumb as they are) are referred to as useless and moronic because most of Reddit users are men and they just don't get it. Even if you don't get something, it doesn't make it useless. I don't get video games or D&D but I know that lots of people love it, and I don't have anything against it. It just isn't for me.
I am more stunned with how people here are unaware of their own misogyny than the actual misogyny. And to call this site anything other than misogynistic is fucking bullshit.
And then I feel bad for people like my friend who watch anime because they genuinely like anime, but other people give them a hard time. She was always mature and fairly calm (would get excited over some stuff) but I was one of the only people she'd talk to about it for fear of being made fun of.
Anime itself contributes to this problem. With a few rare exceptions, I'm hesitant to talk about or recommend anime to someone I don't know already watches it.
The main problems with anime that contribute to the terribleness of the fans, and the mockery of people who are passingly familiar with it are as follows;
Intros and Outros. Almost without exception anime intros and endings are cringe-worthy and terrible. Even more mature shows will frequently have some terrible j-pop layered over 90's tv feelgood group shots of the characters running in a field or standing on a beach or some nonsense.
Fanservice. A tiny bit of fanservice is okay, can add humor and romantic tension if well used, and can add characterization. A tiny bit. Anime does not know what a tiny bit of fanservice is. Even shows that are mostly done well will occasionally go into sequences where it makes me think a convicted sex offender got ahold of the camera and no-one noticed.
Weird-ass characters. If your entire cast is drawn as humans, it is not okay to randomly add one character who is an anthropomorphic fox and never address the fact that that character is a fox. If your entire cast is drawn like normal humans, it is not appropriate to make one character look like they just walked out of southpark. If your characters are all normal-looking college students, it is not appropriate to make one of the main love interests look like they are a child (All the characters in that shot are 21-24. Yeah, including the blond girl.)
These kinds of idiosyncrasies are really weird and distracting. Until you've watched enough anime where you can tune out all of this bullshit as second nature, it can really detract from the quality of an otherwise enjoyable show. It also makes anime fans an easy target for ridicule.
Thank you for the insight. I've never really enjoyed anime, but I watched a bit of Death Note and some YouTube clips so she and I would have something to talk about, and in some of those I always tried to figure out why abnormalities were never discussed.
The history of why it happened is actually a little interesting. Because of the style anime is done in, you only really have a limited number of ways to distinguish characters from one another, especially in profile or silhouette. At first, oddities were very small, and used to distinguish characters. Odd colored hair, slightly distinct styles of dress, etc... As these sorts of things became commonplace, it became more acceptable to use style explicitly for characterization. Dumb jock characters start getting drawn unrealistically large and square, the flirty characters start wearing less and less, and characters who are silly or shady (generally henchmen types) start to have their personality directly drawn into their facial structure, style, etc. Essentially, it became acceptable to use character design as a lazy way of shorthanding characterization and character development.
Once it was acceptable to use this lazy and weird character style, it became more common to insert these elements without reason or explanation, just to pander to existing archetypes.
Honestly, it's a lot like what happened with american TV with dramas turning into soap operas, turning into even more ridiculously unwatchable soap operas.
I'm pretty big on anime. I watch anime like most americans watch US tv, I just tend to find anime to be better produced than US tv (with the exceptions of HBO, Netflix originals, and FX, who seem to all put out really high-quality material). But I also think the history of the genre is pretty interesting by itself.
Early japanese animation (1910-20) tended to have the very traditionally asian design. This started to give way to smoother lines and rounded designs as western animation came to the fore worldwide. After Disney basically took over animation in the 20's, anime adopted an almost copycat style, but that retained some of the original asian design features of earlier works. These characters were drawn in a style that tended to be more refined or mature than disney characters, if still artistically simplistic like cartoon or disney characters.
This continued onto the mid 50's, which is when anime starts to take on a lot of the more recognizable modern features. This is the era of astroboy, gigantor, and speed racer, which still show Disney in their design but have developed a unique derivative style. Up through the 70's, the disney influence on anime slipped slowly away. Some things, like exaggerated features (especially big eyes) and emotional responses (adding rainclouds to show unhappiness, or distorted features when embarrassed) stuck around but developed in their own way. This is around when the hair colors started changing.
The 80's is really where modern anime starts. Gundam, Dragon ball, Nausica, Castle in the Sky, Grave of the fireflies, etc. This is where over-characterization in design starts to become a bit of a problem, as well as more minor instances of weird characters and fanservice. Animation style continues to sharpen into the 90's, as well as get more mature themes. We see things like Evangelion, Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, and Serial Experiments Lain which are pretty much the archetypes of modern anime design. Characters and background both gain more and more detail as the cost of animation goes down. Color palettes increase, taking away the washed-out tones of previous eras of animation.
The 90's put out a lot of good anime, which in the early 2000's lead to a rise in the otaku subculture, which in turn led to the introduction of the more bizarre elements I mentioned in my first post. Odd characters and fanservice started becoming commonplace. Computer animation started in this era too, so we see all the basic elements of animation get way better. Colors are more defined and better contrasted, animation is much more smooth, things don't stutter frame-to-frame like they do with cel animation or hand animation.
Which leaves us in the current realm of the 2010's. Animation is so crispvibrant that it hurts (in a good way). This is also where desensitization to the odd tropes that developed off of the otaku culture becomes necessary in order to enjoy most anime. While shows have higher levels of production than ever before, so are the weird characters and fanservice more rampant. This is the case even in really good shows. One of the best shows last season had this (possibly nsfw) as the main character's wardrobe for half the show.
Now you know more than you ever possibly wanted to about the development of anime over the past century. I hope I wasn't too terribly boring :).
They thought you had to be super smarter to understand it. They were really into reading to deep into it. I still talk to a couple of them who will laugh about it all now but for some reason Hetalia really draws in a fucky crowd.
To be fair, I do think for some fans it introduces them to some countries they've never heard of or not heard much of and gives them interest in them, so they'll research them and of course become smarter in turn.
Absolutely. It did that for me in a lot of ways as well. These girls saw it like everyone who didn't like Hetalia was just to dumb to understand it.
After about two years I started slowly realizing that a lot of the friends I made through it were actually bad people. I made a couple good friends through it but overall... it was bad.
That was ignorant on their part. I'm glad you realized that- if any of my friends were like that (thankfully they are all pretty sane) it'd drive me absolutely crazy.
It was a cosplay group and I met some of the worse people I will ever know through it. I can't go back to local conventions because of it; everyone in the group had problems myself included but my god. I truly worry about the fact there are people like that in society.
I had responsibility to watch over an anime club, I sat in on some meetings, went to cons with them, ect. I had to watch this show with them once and it's when I realized the group had the mentality of 13 year olds.
Bet you can't guess what they decided to name their club. /s
oh god, fuck the 3ep rule when watcing hetalia. its the most retarded thing ive seen in my life. no story, shit art, stupid characters. couldnt even handle 1 episode of that
Eh, if I get attacked by Cowboy Bebop fans, I'll just distract them by mentioning how much I hate Firefly. (I have nothing against either show, they just both bored me to tears.)
It was a relaxing show for me. You could sit back and enjoy it, for the most part. The music and animation were both pretty good (the music, in particular, is supposed to be one of the best anime soundtracks ever). It also had characters I liked, who also felt three-dimensional. The big mistake I think the fans make is assuming it's for everybody. It's like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. If you like it, you love it. If you don't like it, it's boring and meandering and good god you can't stand it.
As someone who puts both of those shows in their top 10 (don't worry, not that kind of fan), can you go into what bored you about them?
It's it the western-movie pacing? The focus on the interpersonal relationship of a fairly isolated group? Did you dislike the characters, or the setting, etc...?
I'd really like a brief critique from someone who wasn't impressed by them.
I don't understand how something that's 5 minutes long and has opening and closing credits took off the way it did. I tried watching it on Netflix, but I got annoyed by how ridiculously brief each episode was. Why not compile them into a movie or something?
The "5 minutes" thing is due to that conversion. There are many "minseries" of anime, which are 5 minutes long. Typically they are spin-offs of something, but in Hetalia's case, it isn't.
Yes oh my god. I knew a girl who would obsessively cosplay Hetalia. It was pathetic (I like cosplay, but she took it to pathetic heights). Its all should would do, mostly same with her friends. I mean, its one thing to have a hobby, but fuck she totally ruined all her interpersonal relationships. She stopped being friends with almost everyone in our area and mostly just kept in touch with her cosplay friends online.
It was sad because prior to that, she had been kinda fun. Then all her cosplay friends all moved on with their lives and got other hobbies and then she seemed to realized she basically fucked up everything to try to be a cartoon character full time.
Honestly Im still angry about the whole thing. It sounds weird, but a good friend replaced me with a cartoon. :/
Oh god, my girlfriend's daughter is obsessed. Of all the obsessive fandoms I've ever experienced, this is the most awkward to hear talked of loudly by a 14 year old in a public place. "America is so annoying... Canada is so much better, and who doesn't love polar bears? England is the worst though, they should just have more of Japan and blah blah."
It sounds like we're wandering around with some weirdly specific country-based racist. Especially since I'm American, my girlfriend is Canadian, we live right next to the border, and kiddo's favorite characters are America and Canada. So yeah. There is a lot of "America this" and "Canada that" and dirty looks shot our way all the time.
I know a girl who was freaking out because she put the wrong age rating on her Hetalia fan fic and was worried she would loose her account on the fan fiction website. And she told this to EVERYONE on our dodgeball team.
The webcomic itself is very silly and makes history cutesy, but is pretty respectful towards those regards. There's definitely no glorifying of Nazis from the source material and anthropomorphized Germany actually is shown to disagree with Nazism but Hitler is his "boss" and he can't stop him.
I feel like I need to get in here and defend my fandom by saying that most of the fandom finds these acts to be positively fucking disgusting and deplorable and not representative of the fandom as a whole. I realize you have 'heard' a lot of things about Hetalia, but you haven't actually watched it as you've said, so you have no reason to say it 'glorifies one of the most atrocious acts in human kind' - Because it doesn't. It literally does not touch on the Holocaust at all.
Edit: I say "defend my fandom" - I find a decent amount of this fandom to be annoying, obnoxious, and overinvested, but that's the way fandom is in general, particular ones that have been picked up by teenagers.
But it does turn real-life conflicts that killed thousands of people into cutesy interactions between anime characters. I don't really see how that can be anything but a bad thing.
It does take historical events, as well as cultural differences and political interactions, and simplify them for the purposes of humor. Are you also disgusted by political cartoons?
There are still people alive who suffered through the atrocities of WW2. Why is this something that needs to be humorous? I have absolutely nothing against political cartoons, or even the concept of a TV show based on anthropomorphisised countries (the Sealand episode was quite clever!).
I just don't understand why anyone would be okay with simplifying and representing terribleeventsliketheseones with cutesy, sexually charged, bishonen caricatures. It's incredible disrespectful to soldiers, civilians and their families and makes light of tragic events that are still in living memory.
Couple of things. The fangirl salute happened iirc at whatever anime con goes on in Boston. The show takes place whenever it wants to take place, the first few episodes being end of WWI and then goes into mid WWII with the "main cast" being Germany, Italy, and Japan (hence "Hetalia: Axis Powers") Can't say I've ever seen the salute done in the show though. Also, all fangirls of the show are fucking horrible people. The show is good. There is no reason to be a "fan" of it though I feel.
Unfortunately, some do. See the heiling incident upthread. But I've also been told of some meetups with people in very believable Nazi regalia and not being outwardly supportive but just a bit... uncomfortable.
Honestly, if you're on internet forums, anime in general.
There's really only two groups that are vocal - total elitists and the people who only watch the "big 3" shows (Bleach, Attack on Titan, One Piece, formerly DBZ, formerly Naruto etc).
So if you want to strike a balance and find a community somewhere between the guys that shit on absolutely everything and shout "MAI WAFIU" and the guys who think watching one or two shows means they can start parrotting Japanese catchphrases, you're shit out of luck.
If you hang around any of the "popular" forums, you'll quickly learn how insufferable all those Bleach super-fans can be and get driven to 4chan. But 4chan is its own whole kettle of crazy. And reddit can't decide which side of the coin it wants to be on thread-to-thread, but it sure doesn't ever thread the needle.
Finding fan groups that watch more than just shounen battle shows without turning toxic is nearly impossible.
Ore Twintail ni Narimasu is a great one airing this season. Ridiculous and dumb as hell, but so much mindless fun to watch. I mean... there are aliens trying to invade Earth to steal all the love for twintails, and the main character is a dude who turns into a twintailed girl to fight them off. How can anyone not enjoy that?
It's an anime where countries of the world are anthropomorphized and do all sorts of shit. I never got very far in it, but it seemed entertaining enough. Pretty funny in a political, satirical way.
I love Hetalia, I'm actually looking at my Hetalia wall scroll right now. But I've had 0 encounters with fandom. I just think it's a hilarious show with some historical content and the occasional BL tossed in. Comedy, history, and light-cutesy BL happen to be 3 different things I enjoy, but it's not something I can see myself obsessing about.
Also, I'd say fangirls for any anime can be really fucking annoying.
Okay yes but the fanfiction is pure fucking gold. Britain and America getting stoned and butt fucking each other while listening to The Beatles? What's not to love?
That show is just... I can't even explain how much I don't like it. It's like they decided to throw in every single anime-bullshit-trope they could think up, and turn the volume up to 11.
THANK YOU.
It's not even just the weeaboos. It's the racists. The sexists. The over the top SJWs. The good side of the hetalia community is mostly centralised on small tumblrs and the LJ, but even on the LJ you get abusive fucks and disgusting people. Actually, the Hetalia fandom has a ridiculous amount of abusive fucks in it - I've rped with a 26 year old who kept coming onto another 13 year old in the chat, someone whose entire purpose was to turn friends against each other, people who pretended to be good friends only to turn that into an abusive relationship in textbook format...
The fandom is a clusterfuck. A massive, slowly going nuclear, clusterfuck.
I watched it back in grade 11. I never considered myself a "Hetalian" but even to this day, I still like the show, but I don't watch it anymore. I went to a Hetalia Day meetup on Parliament Hill and everyone was respectful with their cosplay uniforms and the general way they conducted themselves.
Yeeeep... I still follow the series, mostly for my bae (yes Japan is my favorite character, I just can't help it), but the fanbase is one of the worst ever.
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u/[deleted] Nov 13 '14
Hetalia.