Hetalia Archives:About

What is Hetalia?
Hetalia: Axis Powers is an increasingly popular Japanese series, focusing on following unique personifications of each nation through history – namely World Wars I and II – and providing the reader with occasional real-life occurrences and facts, created and illustrated by Himaruya Hidekaz. Said personifications of each nation are of the creator’s own design and do not follow the standard sets of existing personifications (i.e. Uncle Sam, John Bull, etc.); each one of them are principally made up of the average citizen living in their country, appearance and personality-wise, with as many common Japanese stereotypes that had been thought up added onto their character. As such, some of said stereotypes can cause confusion for a North American reader, and further confusion for a European reader.

Hetalia began as a one-shot webcomic in July of 2006 on Himaruya’s blog, and has since been made into an anime adaptation which premiered first in 2009 (which has 5 seasons so far, with a sixth set to be shown in summer 2014), a manga series since 2010 (comprising of 6 published volumes so far), and several drama CDs, video games and merchandise.

The main appeal of this series is likely comes from the unique combination of world history, comedy, wide arsenal of strange characters and the nonchalant ways each culture is made fun of. However, while some will enjoy this chance to laugh at themselves as well as the rest of the world, the controversy over the “racism” of the show is known famously among fans (a prime example being the protests it sparked in South Korea). It mainly follows the personifications of the main members of the Axis Powers and Allied Forces throughout World War II and other symbolic instances in history – being Italy (more, the northern half of the country), Germany, Japan, America (formally referred to as U.S.A.), England (formally referred to as U.K.), France, China and Russia – as they pit against one another in a (usually) light-hearted manner during huge and insignificant world matters alike. The title can be made by combining the words hetare (Japanese for “useless” in a more endearing way than not) and Italia (the Italian word for Italy) into a single title; Hetalia (ヘタリア).

Current Projects on the Wikia
Currently, many users are collaborating or taking it upon themselves to help gradually restore this Wikia to its "former glory". Many different pages are being edited and updated, noticeably the individual character pages being re-made, the uniform, voice actors and episode guides being updated with new information and further action taken on the series, and just the general "polishing" of each page. If you have any suggestion or information you wish to contribute, or maybe just a small grammical cleanup, go right ahead, and feel free to ask the users listed below for anything!

Active Sources
If there are any questions you wish to ask about the series, the links below will likely satisfy your curiosity: And, if you have a question that was left unanswered or wish to speak about any aspect of the Wikia that his troubling you or otherwise, the users below would love to answer your questions!:
 * Characters
 * Anime
 * Manga
 * Webcomic
 * Rumors and Misconceptions
 * Memes in fandom
 * WonderfulAsia
 * Allusional
 * Jazzgx
 * Roseoffire