Hetalia: Axis Powers

Hetalia: Axis Powers was first an original doujinshi webcomic, which was later released as a manga, and then a short-episode anime (none any more than 5 minutes). It depicts countries as anthropomorphic characters with the bulk of the story happening during or around World War II and, for the most part, focusing on the Axis Powers - Germany, North Italy and Japan. The major arcs that aren't set during this time are the 'Chibitalia' (Little Italy) arc, which contained the Italian Renaissance and largely Italy's 'friendship' with the Holy Roman Empire, and 'America's Storage Cleaning' arc, which showed colonial America being raised as a child by England/Britain and the subsequent American Revolution. Hetalia is a made-up word, composed of hetare (へタレ meaning useless) and Itaria/Italia (イタリア meaning Italy). The series pokes fun at North Italy's apparent cowardice during WWII.
The more recent Hetalia: World Series (seasons 3&4) and Hetalia: The Beautiful World (season 5) move largely away from the world wars and into various other timelines. 'Modern day' strips have become more popular and various strips giving snapshots into the childhoods of various characters (like England/Britain, Russia and Japan) and, like with the Chibitalia segment, some are expanded upon, 'Boss Spain and Chibi Romano [South Italy]' being the most notable. Also, it looks at various wars in the Hetalia style, like the War of Austrian Succession and Seven Years War.
Season 5 had a dramatic art change, making the colours smoother and adjusting to keep up with the original artist's developing art style. However, fannish opinions differ on whether the change is good or not; many of the characters appear more bishi-fied than before the change.
In October 2020, the official Hetalia Twitter account announced that there would be a new continuation of the anime, Hetalia World Stars, scheduled to be released in the Spring of 2021.
An important point of access for entering the fandom is that the Nations all have "human" names to match their vaguely defined human personas. Some of these come as Word of God, but others are fanon.
== Fandom ==
English-speaking fandom for Hetalia quickly exploded; in its first year the LiveJournal community Hetalia reached over 10,000 members. It reached 20,000 members before it's first 17 months,Hetalia had 20,050 members when retrieved 2009 September 29. and is currently over 26,500 members.26,587 members as of 2010 March 14. At it's height, the community had around 50-60 posts each day.
In Japanese-speaking doujin fandom, Hetalia is wildly popular. Doujinshi based on the original doujinshi are so numerous that the fandom has its own genre code at Comiket.
On FanFiction.net, as of June 22, 2016, Hetalia became the second most popular Anime/Manga fandom, replacing Inuyasha. On Archive of Our Own, Hetalia become one of the top 5 most tagged fandoms in Anime & Manga in April 2012 when it reached over 1,300 works. In February 2014 it surpassed Naruto to become the most popular in the category when it reached over 6,800 works. In March 2014 it was surpassed by Attack on Titan reaching over 7,200 works. Hetalia dropped out of the top 5 around August 2018, with over 28,000 works.
=== Hetalia Day ===
In 2009, Hetalia fans on LiveJournal created Hetalia Day. Hetalia Day meetups were and are held on October 24th, or as close to it as possible. At the fandom's peak, there were meetups in over 30 countries, with most of the meetups occurring in the United States. In recent years, with the decline of the fandom, there have been fewer meetups, though as of 2018 Hetalia Day was celebrated in 8 countries and 9 states within the U.S. Meetups typically included cosplay, dancing, and games. Each group is supposed to take a photo with the state or national flag of where the meetup takes place. Hetalia Day New York City also raises funds for UNICEF.
=== Pairings ===
Yaoi is extremely prevalent in this fandom; all of the main characters and most of the cast are male. Het is also around though it is not as popular since there are very few female characters to work with.
Popular pairings include FRUK (France/England), USUK (America/England), Gerita (Germany/Northern Italy), RusAme (Russia/America), Spamano (Spain/Southern Italy) and SuFin (Sweden/Finland).
In the Eastern fandom, askakiku (England/Japan) and rochu (Russia/China) are more popular. 
There are so many popularly shipped pairings that the Hetalia community, which has extensive tags list, doesn't even try to keep tags for them. The whole cast is ship-able, and fandom ships it. During the series peak of popularity, shipping wars were prevalent, especially between FRUK and USUK, and it wasn't uncommon for fans of rival pairings to bash each other. Nowadays, things have calmed down and there is not nearly as much animosity between shippers.
===Fannish Trends and Tropes===
==== Alternate Universes ====
alternate universes in canon or inspired by art from the creator
*Magical Strike AU (based on the Magical strike episode where France is a magical girl who goes on strike
*Gakuen (based on an unfinished dating sim where the characters are students in a private high school)
*Cardverse (based off of official art where the characters are divided into four kingdoms based on card suits)
common non canon or inspired by creator art alternate universes
* Human AU
* Modern Setting
* OCs based on countries (or sometimes even regions of a country) not featured yet in canon. IE: Latin Hetalia, Statetalia, Provincetalia
==== Tropes ====
* Historical Hetalia
* Hetalia Countries Using Human Names
* Human & Country Names Used (Hetalia)
===Character Designs===
Earlier mentioned is the Chibitalia designs, but Himaruya also drew some other alternate designs for the characters in 2011 and the fandom has since designated these as "alternate universe" or "alternate personality" versions.2P!Hetalia: What it Is, dA journal entry by Firestixian, Jan 15 2012 2P Hetalia fanworks are very common. Similarly, although less common in the fandom, Himaruya designed genderswapped versions of all the characters, in verse called Nyotalia.
== Fan Communities ==
Despite being over twenty years old, Hetalia still maintains an active presence on numerous fanfiction hosting websites as well as social media platforms.
=== Archive of Our Own ===
Hetalia has a noteworthy presence on Archive of Our Own (AO3), with nearly 52,000 works as of 06 June, 2023.
=== Discord ===
A fairly large Hetalia Discord community (with just shy of 4000 members) is seen in the Hetalia Discord "The Vital Region 2.0."
=== Fanfiction.net ===
Hetalia has an active presence on Fanfiction.net, with over 120,000 works as of 15 February, 2019.
=== Instagram ===
Hetalia has an impressive and highly active (mainly fanart and cosplay) presence on Instagram, with tags ranging from around 1 million to 30k posts such as:
* #hetalia (1.7 million posts)
* #hetaliaaxispowers (166k posts)
* #hetaliacosplay (109k posts)
* #hetaliafanart (73.6k posts)
* #hetaliaedit (37.6k posts)
* #hetaliamemes (30.6k posts)
===LiveJournal===
Hetalia has an immense and incredibly active presence on LiveJournal. The largest resource is the Hetalia LJ Community Masterlist. Some of the largest communities (with over 1,000 members) include: 
* Hetalia - main Hetalia community
* Hetalia_Daily - newsletter
* NationSlash
* Hetalia_Doujin
* USxUK - US x UK
* What_the_FrUK - France x UK
* Axis Powers Hetalia Kink Meme - kink meme originally hosted on LiveJournal, later moved to Dreamwidth
=== Tumblr ===
Hetalia has a respectable fanart and theorizing/headcanon presence on Tumblr with the main tag of #hetalia having 72k members, as of 06 June, 2023. Additionally, some of the best scanlations and news blogs are located there, such as:
* Hetascanlations - scanlations and translations of the manga
* Hetalia File Archive - formally a reference site for the Hetalia LJ community but currently focuses on scanlations, translations, and general news
* Transparentalia - makes official Hetalia art transparent
* Hetaliaarchives - official news for the Hetalia Kitawiki, as well as Hetalia itself and Himaruya's other works
* Hetaliabuyblog - links to shops where one can buy official Hetalia merchandise
* Hetalia Happenings - keeps track of events, weeks, and zines within the Hetalia fandom
* Heta-on-the-books - keeps track of events, weeks, groups, roleplay, and ask-blogs with the Hetalia fandom
== Criticism & Controversy==
Hetalia has come under criticism for having a light-hearted approach to serious historical events of World War II, such as an offhand comment by Germany about Jews in the English Dub, referencing the Holocaust. An extreme example of this was when someone requested the Rape of Nanking in a kink meme Hetalia kink meme fic index by amy_elysian, accessed April 6, 2010, though fandom does not usually go that far. Still, fans will occasionally get criticisms on fanworks for allegedly trivializing tragic events or being disrespectful.
Disrespect for the Holocaust has occurred offline as well, in what became known as "The Anime Boston Incident". During a photoshoot at Anime Boston 2010, some Germany and Prussia cosplayers did Nazi Salutes for photos, which were then uploaded to the Hetalia Livejournal community. The organiser apologised after criticism.A MAJOR APOLOGY FOR ANIME BOSTON
Another criticism of Hetalia is that it applies exaggerated ethnic stereotypes to the characters, in a way that can potentially be seen as racist. The show's depiction of the nation of Korea has especially come under fire, given Japan's violent history as an imperializing force in Korea, and the show was banned in South Korea.
Despite these criticisms, and considering Hetalia's subject matter and the massive activity of its fandom, wank is relatively uncommon. This is possibly because many fans choose to vent their frustrations in a separate anonymous memehttp://aphanon-meme.livejournal.com/, where they are allowed to rant and discuss anything, Hetalia or otherwise. Fans of the show tend to address criticisms gently, maturely, and with understanding. The most drama the community gets usually involves conflicts with the maintainers.
There is, however, a general perception that Hetalia is a wanky fandom by outside observers. See, for instance, inkstone's post about the Hetalia cosplayers doing a Nazi salute at Anime Boston: "It's funny that all these people are coming out and saying, "I'm not surprised about the Hetalia fail!" Not because they're failing, but because I really have no explanation for why I have such a negative impression of the fandom despite pretty much never having been in it or interacting with it." (See also: Anime Boston Incident)
In 2019, the fandom was involved in controversy regarding the content of its subject material once again, despite this being years after the fandom's peak infamy in the decade's early years. For more information, see 2019 Hetalia Tag Raids. 
==Notable Fanworks==
===Fanfiction===
*Adieu, Be Of Good Cheer by LyingMonsters - Based off the story of Frederick and Hans of Prussia.
*Air Raid Sirens in the Key of F Major by polski-doodle - The story follows Austria who is working as an alcoholic composer for Adolf Hitler during World War II.
*All He Ever Wanted by byzantienne, mithrigil, and puella_nerdii - a fanfiction series taking an alternate look at WW2 and the "Axis of Evil".
*Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart - Feliciano is the grandson of a resistance leader in WWII Italy, when he meets Ludwig, a German solider.
*Axis Powers Hetalia Episode 23.5 by kyokyo866 - Creepypasta; Kyo discovers a Lost Episode on her sister's bootleg Hetalia DVD with the Axis on an Island arc, in which Germany and Japan are desperate for food and decide to eat Italy.
*A Castle of Silence and Bones by dreams.of.destiny. An AU in which the Axis powers have won WWII and established and China has been conquerer by his unhinged brother Japan and waits for the chance to strike back.
*The Chosen End by wizzard890 and pyrrhiccomedy, a series about the relationship between Russia and the United States, from before the Revolutionary War to the Cold War.
*The Clockwork Stranger by Hellie Ace. A high school AU darkfic where the theft of a parking spot results in an escalating war.
*Cross Your Heart by Bluesunkatsuri. Prussia's life has been a search for the truth from the start. 
*Dawn of the New World Order by BlazeSilvermageVIII - Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, a number of nations have hidden their true selves... Now they will change the world... or die trying.
*Doppelganger (Hetalia: Axis Powers story) by Jenni N - The nation's hatreds have gained physical forms and are inciting their people into violence.
* by Zeplerfer - an English swing dancing competition-set fic. America/England.
*From the Ashes (Hetalia: Axis Powers story) by Streamingwords - A nuclear war has devastated the world and left many nations dead or badly wounded. The survivors meet in Geneva to begin rebuilding.
*Genderswapped Nations by Pandapika - America and the other child gender bent nations must thwart Prussia's plan for world domination however they can.
*The Hearth Series by SpeakingThroughWrittenWords - a series of stories which all center around a small town named Hearth, inhabited by the various nations.
*Hetalia School For Vampire Hunters by SalaciousCrumb - Alfred is a determined vampire hunter in training. But this training is put to the test when he actually meets one. Arthur is irritating, British and unnervingly attractive. But even Alfred's not stupid enough to fall in love with him.
*Human Curiosity by Super Sister. Almost all of the Nations have vanished under mysterious circumstances. One century later, America sets off to find the truth about the "nation-napping", linked to a mysterious group known as the HCS.
*It's a Fraintastic world by Miruru (France/Spain) - Collection of Frain drabbles set in different universes (both canon and alternative) [2024]
*It's a Small World, After All by Bri Nara - An age reversing spell by England accidentally transforms most of the nations into young children. (Crackfic)
*It's All About The Delivery by Allheroeswearhats - The new Prime Minister of Canada is already in love with his job. Shame there's that really weird kid who thinks he's Canada.
*Lamination by MindABoveMadness - All it takes is one little interruption in a world meeting for America's laminated cover to be torn to shreds.
*News Feed by MayAnny - The CIA messes up again and now the whole world knows about the Nations! 
*Reset (Hetalia: Axis Powers story) by Allheroeswearhats - Nightmares have plagued Francis for as long as he could remember, but it’s only now that he’s realising they may be more real than he thought. 
*Secrets and Directives by YingYangKay. Set in a world where humans are aware of nations' existence, and how it impacts them, particularly with the influence of the internet.
*String of Time by WinterWrites23 - loosely based on the first season of Outlander, Northern Ireland finds himself transported to the Jacobite Era and must avoid destroying the timeline.
*Wendigo (Hetalia: Axis Powers story) by AnAppleOfDiscord - A longtime enemy settles the score; Alfred gets caught in the crossfire.
*You Can't Take the Sky Away from Me by EverythingIsMagic - "Ace pilot America is on a mission for the World Military when a chance encounter with a group of sky-pirates leads him to team up with their captain, England, against a malevolent group that wants to fill the sky with zepplins."
===Zines===
*Draw a Circle (There's the World) a surreal art zine by tomato-bird
*Razzle Dazzle: A Historical Hetalia Anthology a free digital fan anthology for Hetalia World Stars themed around the 20th century 
*Kaibigan "a charity fan zine for Hetalia World Stars, featuring works by artists and writers of Asian / AAPI descent and their BIPOC allies 
*The World - A Hetalia Fanzine "This zine contains the work of several BIPOC creators within the Hetalia fandom who have come together to show their talents and their cultures in art." 
*Together in Unity: A HWS NA Bros Fanzine "A non-profit charity fanzine dedicated to the familial bond of the characters America and Canada from Hetalia World Stars."You heard it right: Together in Unity: A HWS NA Brothers Fanzine has finally been released!
===Other===
*Maaf by dinousarusgede, a comic about the Netherlands' relationship to Indonesia.
*HetaOni by Tomoyoshi, a fan game based on Hetalia and the indie game Ao Oni, dark. With translated versions on SotetAG's YouTube Channel, and English translated version on Kyokoon64's YouTube Channel. Unfinished, but there have been unofficial sequels. 
*Dreamtalia by Pianodream and Kyokoon64/KyoKyo866 on Kyokoon64's YouTube Channel, a fan game based on Hetalia and tarot cards.
*ask-aph-fruk tumblr comic post featuring England and colonial America set to "You'll Be Back" from Hamilton. ask-aph-fruk is one of many popular hetalia ask blogs on tumblr, where the owner of the account roleplayed as the character and users could use tumblr's ask box feature to ask questions to the characters, in this case, France and England as a ship.
=== Fanart ===
* Manga-style ver key anime visual by Cioccolatodorima
=== Meta ===
* Hetalia Parody or Problem? - commentary by Bliss Fully Aware podcast (Sep 27/20)
==References==
Category:Hetalia: Axis Powers