I don't think Himaruya Hidekaz had considered, what his web comic / anime would do.
I am sure that he had not considered what it would do to me.
Hetalia was the reason why I began to write fanfiction again. Hetalia is the basis of many novel ideas I have had.
To a lot of people it may sound stupid that I consider Hetalia not only as an anime, but as a philosophy. To me this is not exaggerated in any way. And maybe you will understand why in the next few paragraphs.
On first glance it seems weird. Books, music, movies – they are all accepted and considered as a part of art. But anime? The first animes I had watched, were only romance anime. A few have been and are stillamazing, but I would not think of them as I do of Hetalia.
The sole idea of turning countries into humans is just… genius. Everybody lives somewhere, everybody is part of a nation. No matter how small and humble, no matter how big and powerful. And history, politics, culture – all of this give a never ending potential to the series. Of course you could say that this could be understood in this case just as a genius marketing idea.
It is, you cannot deny that.
But it is much much more than that.
I don't even want to write about the fandom. Many people have already written about it. I only want to say that I have never seen a fandom as amazing as this.
I want to write about the way of life, the philosophy Hetalia teaches.
One example for this is the common Hetalia saying "Make pasta, not war.".
Italy seems to be in general understood as relatively dumb fellow. But many fanfiction and especially doujinshi (e.g. "Secret Garden") show him as not stupid – on the contrary: He is the most clever and intelligent of all of the nations. Maybe not intelligent in our common understanding.
Of course many things out of the series are not accurate to actual historical happenings. It is a comedy series. It wouldn't be funny if they presented history accurately. Because history is a twisted bloody thing. But the Hetalia-Italy decides that surrendering, not fighting, enjoying life, doing what you want to do, is, what you should do, because then you'll be free and happy.
Before understanding all of that, I asked myself all the time, why one should take little weak stupid naïve Italy as the protagonist of the story. And this story teaches us to not judge anybody.
Furthermore Hetalia is for everyone. Like I already said: Everybody lives in a somewhere. Everybody is a part of stereotypes (adds again to the 'not judge anybody' point). And still, kind of, we are all the same. We are all humans. All the characters sing basically the same outro song (in Axis Powers). They variate only in the specialities of their countries. And they hold each other on their hands dancing around the globe. The question is here: Why do we actually fight each other? We breathe, we sleep, we drink, we eat, we smile, we cry, we scream, walk, stand, run, we talk – only in different languages.
Also Hetalia has brought me more understanding of my country. I was taught by my society, my german society, to not love my country. To not be proud of it. Here there is always a slight hush lingering in the air of "Be careful – the past!". The only time we wave our flag, sing our national anthem and are proud, is at times like the world champion ship. It is like Germans are afraid to love again. Because the past, the past! It seems like an eternal punishment to our country because it had been something so horrible in the past. With Hetalia I realized for the first time that I can and should be proud, without being afraid. Because loving my country has nothing to do with nationalsocialistic ideas. I realized that, even if Hetalia is not true of course, a country can be something living, breathing.
People in other countries seem not to care that much about the whole NS-era. I saw people from the US making Hitler birthday cards and posting them on the internet. Here in Germany people would look at you with a deeply disappointed look in their eyes and on their face or some would maybe even scream at you, asking if you are insane.
And this is also why we feel we have to let refugees in. It is even written in our constitution.
And this is also why I am so sad and disappointed that at the moment we seem not to understand each other even a bit.Please, do me a favor, try to understand each other, do not judge each other, reach your hand out for another, because that's a circle, that's the earth.
And if you ask for my nationality: I'm Hetalian.
On occasion of the terror attacks of the 22.03.2016 in Brüssel/Belgium. May the victims rest in peace. I don't know if this is appropriate, but I think I don't know anyhow what is appropriate anymore.
"This was not only an attack on Belgium, it was an attack on Europe." Francois Hollande
I only know this: We can only fight terrorism if "We are one". We can't let these devils separate us – we have to stick together now more than ever.