Author's Note: Before I started watching Hetalia, a friend of mine told me that Japan's eyes looked soulless, since there weren't any sparkles in them. And it's true, if you just look at his eyes, you would think they belonged to some random anime character whose soul had just been stolen by some monster or something. So this is my interpretation of why he's like that. Or at least one of them. The other is that he just looks awesomer without sparkly eyes. Can you imagine a Japan with sparkly eyes? I can't, not really.
Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia.
Soulless Eyes
The nations were all centuries old. Even Sealand, the tiny, obnoxious micronation, had existed for about half a century. They had lived through rises and falls in power, through economic peaks and depressions, through times of peace and war. They had seen, had heard, had felt their people smiling and crying, loving and hating, living and dying. They had centuries of knowledge to draw upon, the culminated experiences of all their citizens to rely on. In their long lives, they had all done unspeakable things.
They had killed, they had maimed, they had tortured, they had betrayed.
They had murdered.
Such was the curse of being a nation.
If such things as souls existed for their kind, they had long since lost theirs.
Every nation had a different way of dealing with their knowledge, their experience, their curse.
America pretended to be an idiot.
Austria had his music.
Belarus obsessed over her brother.
Canada disappeared.
China acted like a big brother to them all.
Denmark had his axe and his excitable personality.
England conversed with his magical friends.
Estonia had his computers.
Finland smiled and named his pets things like "Bloody Flower Egg".
France took love a little too far.
Germany worked hard, so hard, to make things better.
Greece had his cats.
Hungary used her strength.
Iceland ignored the world's expectations.
Italy hid behind an oblivious front.
Korea claimed that everything originated in him.
Latvia trembled.
Liechtenstein adored her brother.
Lithuania channeled his strength into caring for others.
Norway practiced his magic.
Poland had his ponies and his cross-dressing.
Prussia proclaimed his awesomeness whenever he could.
Romano cursed and yelled.
Russia had his spells of insanity and violence.
Spain turned into bubbly, tomato-obsessed freak.
Sweden always put on a mask of calm.
Switzerland took comfort in his guns and his sister.
Turkey wore both a metaphorical and literal mask to hide himself.
Ukraine projected the image of an emotional, easily broken young girl.
They all did something to hide the immense sorrow and pain that came with being the nation of so many citizens, and carrying the burden of the country on their shoulders.
But Japan let it show.
One of the oldest nations, Japan had experienced so much more than anyone else, except maybe China and North Korea. He had been a world power when America was still young, when Canada had just become independent.
He had seen so much, hurt so much, that he couldn't keep it within him. He withdrew into himself, letting the sorrow and pain of his country take away the light in his eyes.
He had asked China once, how the older nation had raised all of Eastern Asia on his own. China had merely looked at him with intense sadness in his eyes, and answered in a voice filled with decades of pain and suffering.
"Japan, we all have different ways of dealing with our histories, aru." And he had left it at that.
Soon afterwards, China returned to his caring self, and Japan had understood. Caring for the other nations was China's way of escaping the horrors of his past.
So Japan had looked for a way to escape, too. But isolation hadn't worked. He tried imitating France, but that hadn't worked, either. Neither had imitating America, or England, or any of the other European nations.
Japan found that he couldn't suppress his history, or hide from it, like the others.
So he simply let it show as it pleased.
He didn't push it to the back of his mind, or think about it all the time; no, Japan merely let it be. For him, it was just a fact of life.
If any nation looked closely, they would have seen the sorrow in the Asian nation's dark brown eyes. A sorrow that mirrored their own, a sorrow that they kept hidden deep within, a sorrow that could only come from loving every one of their citizens from the moment of birth to the moment of death, of mourning every day as said citizens left behind empty holes in their nations' hearts as they died.
If any nation looked closely, they would have found that in the Asian nation's eyes was a pain that they didn't want to face.
So the nations simply did not look closely.
They all had their own ways of dealing with their histories, their pains, their sorrows. They did not talk about it, did not share their experiences, but they all knew what the others felt. They simply chose not to notice, not to care.
But at home, when they were alone, when no one was near, they all lost the sparkle in their eyes. The centuries weighed down on them, and they were helpless to shrug them off.
It was their duty. It was their curse. And they hid it well.
Only Japan showed the world the truth.
He let the light in his eyes dim and fade completely.
He let his eyes become bottomless.
He showed the world how soulless they, the nations, really were.
...
Well, someone had to.
Author's Note: That... was not how I thought it would turn out. I just kind of sat there and started typing. Oh, well.
Historical Note: The line where Japan says that he was older than everyone else, except maybe China and North Korea, is referring to my interpretation of their ages.
I place China's birth as somewhere between 3000 and 2000 BC, most likely somewhere right before 2100 BC, since that was when the first dynasty (Xia) was formed.
The first kingdom in Korea (Gojoseon) was supposedly formed in 2333 BC, although I'm not sure how accurate this is, considering it is based off of a creation tale, so I base North Korea's age off of when the first historically verifiable kingdom (Gija Joseon), which was sometime in 1200 BC. Thus, North Korea would have been "born" sometime right before that. (I say that South Korea was born in 300 BC, because that's when the Jin state, which was located in the southern region of the Korean peninsula, was formed. This would also make canonical sense, while maintaining historical accuracy, considering South Korea is younger than Japan.)
Japan's birth I place at right before 400 BC, at the beginning of the Yayoi period. This is also because, in the "China and Chibi Japan" strip of the comic, as well as the corresponding anime episode, China says that his body ached all over from political struggles, which I take to mean the Warring States Period of Chinese history (476-221 BC), right before he found Japan.
Random Note: I found proof that Giripan is kinda cannon! Note that I say "kinda". Apparently, in the "Lazy Comic Country" strip... well... just Google it. It's rather... awkward to describe...
OK, I'll stop rambling now. Hope you enjoyed it!