Hetaliaaaa Hetaliaaaaaaa Hetare HETALIAAAAAAAAA

Hetalia has been a part of my life since middle school. I love Hetalia. I watched the anime ever since I was in 7th grade. As odd as it seems, I can stand Hetalia jokes, but still can't stand idiocy anywhere else. And hetalia isn't exactly the genius kind of show. I know that seems very subjective, but it's just how it is.

Even so, the sad fact is... I MISSED THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY. AAAAAAGHHHH. I FEEL LIKE SUCH AN AWFUL FAN.

And that's why I want to make a post about Hetaday, to lessen my guilt. Unfortunately... school work is piling up, so I can't make anything particularly awesome. I know... high school... I have a Biology exam tomorrow, and somehow I care more about Hetalia than Biology right now. I feel so guilty to both parties...

Anyways. I can improvise during the test. Let's talk Hetalia.

Axis Powers Hetalia's Logo

I started watching the anime after my sister introduced it to me when I was in 7th grade. Somehow, I just watched, watched, watched, and grew obsessed. I told my friend Celeste about it, and she spread the fandom to some more people as well. Just like that, I now have some Hetafan friends. Or more like friends who are Hetafans. Eh, same thing to me. Point is, I can talk about it with someone.

Years after first knowing of its existence, I begin to see more and more of its fandom and canon, and I love it even more. Until.... The World Twinkle came out. Yeah, I kinda stopped watching there. I don't like the sixth season, although the fifth is fine. The Beautiful World has some great character songs too.

As a rather long time fan, I have my own reason to stay in the fandom. I think Hetalia has another side other than just mere stereotypical jokes. This side is partly why I love Hetalia so much. This other side, unfortunately, requires you to look closely to notice, which is why I only found it during eighth or ninth grade. (Can't remember exactly when.)

Before we get to the serious part, let's see the lighter side. Basically, Hetalia is just a show about nations, ranging from historical events to cultural differences. It's mostly funny, showing both good and bad/annoying sides of every character while being mainly neutral. It doesn't show how bad some nations are, it doesn't show how good the others are, it simply shows you what they all are. Italy can be a real "hetare" guy, but he's a very nice person and a loyal friend. Germany can be a very strict leader, but he's the one who actually made the world meeting go on. No one is perfect, and no one is awful. That's fair and real, and I'm grateful for that.

Marukaite chikyuu, boku Hetalia!

And with all that, Hetalia conveys the message of diversity. I first realise when I listened to World Parade. Even though everyone else that I know hate it, I love it so damn much. All of Hetalia's ending song has many versions by many characters. Each version has their own unique style, from the lyrics to the instruments. What makes this special to me is, despite all the differences in each version, it's still the same song! If you listen to World Parade, (which is fanmade, by the way) you can hear some parts where they all sing in unison, which sounds to me like a choir of nations singing together.

What speaks diversity about this is that even though every nation, every person is different, we are all essentially the same. We are all human beings, we need food, water, air, and we just want to be happy. Living in a very diverse country, I can say that differences often get in the way of things. People fight over their beliefs, trying to do things their own way. However, Hetalia has taught me that rather than pointing out every little thing that bothers you, it's often better to just laugh it off. After all, we are just trying to sing the same song with our own version.

Image not mine. I don't know whose this is though.
(http://s89.photobucket.com/user/AmayaTazuniya/media/Hetalia/AxisandAllies.jpg.html)

Another way to think of it is by looking at the characters. The nations, despite looking fairly young, are mostly centuries old. What we see during the series is what they want others to see them, strong, cool, happy, and all that. What I think they really are is so much more than that. These nations live through history, through war, peace, changes, basically they went through a lot more. They're not just some shallow characters. Although it's not shown that much, I feel like there's so much more that what we see. All the pain they went through, all the glory and defeat, has changed them in some ways. Hetalia has some serious episodes that really got to me. Episodes like America's Closet Cleaning and Jean of Arc's episode from The Beautiful World really hit hard among the fans. These kind of episodes shows that these nations has so much more in them than just being stereotypically funny.

I LOVE THIS PAIRING. BUT IT'S TRAGIC. AND SAD.
WAAAAAAAAH *criesinacorner

To be honest, I just discussed all this with Celeste earlier. We talked about what we like and hate from Hetalia, and also how it has changed our life.

I was the one who told Celeste about Hetalia. Somehow, she grew attached to it, just like me. Now, we have both grown up quite a lot, (mentally, of course) and we both agree that Hetalia is not simply a fandom that we like for shallow reason, but a fandom that we don't want to let go. Ever since she started watching the anime, (I didn't know where to read the manga until a while later) we just can't stop talking about it, to the point that we won't deny that we were OBSESSED with Hetalia.

However, I would have to say that Hetalia really made me some friends. I can say that Celeste and I got really close partly because of Hetalia. Octavia and I met because of Celeste, and we did talk about Hetalia (Although what we did was mostly fighting for no reason. Scratching, poking, annoying Octavia is hella fun!) Octavia and I did get close during high school, although if I hadn't known her before I wouldn't have known her now.

Friendship is the best.

Hetalia has made the world somewhat better for me. Everything that it taught me, the friendship I made that I owe Hetalia for... This Hetaday, I want to express my gratitude to Hetalia. This would be more appropriate if this were it's tenth anniversary, but because I somehow missed it, I'll just say it now.

Himaruya, thank you for creating Hetalia. May the nations continue to screw up the world conference (just kidding. that would be bad, actually...) and may their story continue along with our beautiful world.

Finally, let us draw a circle, wave our white flags, sing our rondo, and go aboard the Hetalian Jet with pride!

PS: I actually planned this post together with Celeste. She posted her Hetalia story in her blog here. Captain has also join the parade! Here's her post! They both made awesome posts, so make sure to check it out!