Tino Väinämöinen

**Tino Väinämöinen** is a minor character in the manga, *Hetalia*, and the *Tea Leaves* series. He is part of the Nordic countries and is personification of Finland.

## Appearance and Personality

### Appearance

Tino has short blond hair and violet eyes (originally colored blue in some early illustrations, and are brown in the anime). He's strong, but with a cute face. He is described as having a "moon face" that is "a bit plump" and round shoulders. He wears a light blue military uniform with a cross neck-charm on the jacket, and sometimes wears a white beret on his head. In a 2011 blog post, Himaruya described him as a "powerful person".

He is the shortest out of the five Nordics and stands at 170 cm, but only when he's wearing a hat. There is approximately a 12 cm height difference between him and Berwald . It was revealed that Berwald knows how to sew, and he managed to alter some of his own clothing so that Tino would have extra clothes, as their height difference was very noticeable. Tino also received clothing from the Italy brothers, in exchange for fish. However it was said they didn't always fit his frame.

He is also often shown in the role of Santa Claus, due to the fact that Santa is claimed to live in Finnish Lapland.

### Personality

Tino is described as being simplistic, gentle, and honest, as well seeming rather adult-like. Eduard, a friend of his, described him as worrying a lot but with a strong core. He is calm but serious and hard-working. He is said to show "great physical strength" during fires and is abnormally strong against the cold. He's very talkative, especially around Berwald, thinking up jokes to lighten the atmosphere, however he is actually a quiet individual. He loves to think of interesting and unusual festivals that no other country could imagine, and actually likes the taste of salmiakki. He also happens to love saunas and loves the combination of alcohol and sweets.

Before gaining his independence, Tino used to be an underling. Out of the five Nordic nations, it is said that he suffered the most hardships in his life. He also sometimes feels a bit like an outsider with the rest of the Nordics due to having a Finno-Ugric language rather than a language derived from Old Norse.

In one of the "Extra Strips", it appears that he doesn't have a good naming sense. It is said that he'll let you poke him up to ten times but he'll return it many times over if you go over that amount.

## Back Story

Tino first appears in Episode 01, seated next to Berwald at the "Meeting Of The World". He gets his first speaking role in Episode 14, when he offers to tell Berwald a joke about Russians, to pass the time in the long line at the supermarket. In the English dub, Berwald's line is mistakenly dubbed as one of Alfred's, causing the role of Tino's joke-listening friend to change from Berwald to Alfed, albeit with Berwald's SD image in a bubble still present.

In The Beautiful World, he makes brief cameos in Gakuen Hetalia: Go Forth! Newspaper Club!! Second Half, Our Failure, and Hetalia of the Dead - First Part. He makes his major speaking debut in Finding Santa. In The World Twinkle, he makes appearances in the Nordic-centered episodes, Meeting of the Nordic and The Nordic Five +α.

In the Axis Powers and World Series adaptation, his light blond hair was changed to a more yellow shade, and his eyes were colored brown. In The Beautiful World, he retained a look closer to the manga's, his hair going back to a light blond color and his eyes back to violet.

## Storyline History

### Tea Leaves and Pink Stockings

Irene Berntsen calls Tino because she's going to explore an abandoned church in the mountains. This triggers strange old memories in the Finnish man's head. He sees himself as depressed young man walking to this church. Tino ends up going with Irene. They take the bus to the woods. The more they walk, the more memories fill Tino's head. He's close to breaking down when Irene has to be the one to pull him back to his senses. Later, Berwald tracks them down and takes them home.

## Relationships

### Irene Berntsen

*Main Article: Irene Berntsen*

Irene and Tino are good friends. He is worried about her job. Most of the time, he ends up going with her to keep her safe.

### Eduard von Bock

Tino and Eduard are very good buddies, having known each other for a long time. After fleeing Denmark's rule, Tino stopped by to visit him, while Berwald offered the Baltics to come join them as family. Feliks refused to let them go, but in the end, Berwald and Tino eventually gained partial ownership over both Eduard and Raivis.

The two men are known to come up with strange festival ideas together, though Estonia snatched the "leader" position away.