User blog comment:KatDWolf/I wonder..../@comment-1271618-20100516203535

Yeah, there's the homogenous factor to consider too. Plus in older anime and stuff, there was rather unfortunate blackface and sometimes you can still see such issues pop up. Darker or different looking characters can be rare in certain series too! Or they'll wind up whitewashed further in adaptation. Zainichi Koreans (Romi Park is a celebrity example) can get by sometimes there, but often I hear of quite the nasty racism. Oddly, the first time I heard of the Japan-China-Korea tensions were from racist YT comment wars years back of folks going "DEATH TO THIS COUNTRY" and all back and forth, blaming each other for stuff like the war crimes, their questionable cuisines ("eeew, all koreans eat dog!" "japanese stop killing whales!"), and even physical appearances. So then I went to read up and...D:. There seem to be some nasty Japanese nationalists on YT that like to declare death to Korea over the fact that yes, some Korean animation studios do plagiarize anime series. But calling death to the entire country for it? Ew.

One thing to remember about Hetalia is that it might not be legit "satire" (oh god, the debates on if it is or not on LJ...), but Himaruya did use ethnic/wartime jokes and consult sites and books about those in addition to historical references. So it's definitely a reason not to use the webcomic as a complete history lesson, and it's sad to see some people that feel like they can always rely on it as a cheat-sheet.

But back to the topics on characters!: I do wonder how the North/South split of Vietnam could be rendered, theoretically, since I doubt Hetalia would touch upon it. I've seen most feel that it would be a split personality disorder or that she would represent one half fighting against America who's taken the rest of her house, though there are the rare fans that insist a split-sibling be created for the era it was two countries.

For Mongolia: Weellll, the Mongol Empire was certainly quite the terror to Europe. I wonder how that could be characterized or handled.