User blog comment:ItsukoChan/Hair Curls/@comment-3273106-20101215000057

It's not really about losing wars and such, it's about the characters / nations losing territory and parts of themselves.

For the italy brothers, north and south italy both have ahoges. Said ahoges are mirror opposites of each other as well. And south korea, since north and south korea were split into two separate countries, south korea is shown to have a similar curl. Though that's often referred to as 'korean spirit' as he just has so much of it.

America has a tiny one, nantucket, and canada has a gigantic one. Note that america and canada look like mirror opposites of each other, so there's the theory that they were 'one' and then split into two different countries as colonization went along and how western expansion carved out the two nations out of that one huge section of the continent of north america. The theory is that america only lost nantucket, apparently, which was tiny. As things went along, canada lost a HUGE chunk of former country or territory (to america, i'm guessing), thus the sheer size of his ahoge. Many people theorize this is the ‘cajuns’ that emigrated down from canada down south to america, and even further south in the united states to the louisiana areas and resettled there

Austria is shown quite clearly in the anime now that he 'lost' and got some vital territory taken over and taken away from him, thus giving him the curl. Or as the empress said, she could automatically tell how the battle went by looking at his ahoge.

Also, china has many small curls at different points in the anime that are coming out of his ponytail, which might be a reference to how much he's been partitioned and carved up by other countries as territory. Rome is also shown to have MANY curls, as his territories and 'country' as it were, or empire, were carved up by different people and countries either taking his territory, or getting their territory back from him. Note the same with greece! Taiwan, as well, has a gigantic hair curl that curls in a spiral like curl and goes forward, and into her face like a droopy antenna, much like canada's does. This might have to do with issues of colonization, then of course japan's takeover of taiwan, then after world war two, the issue of taiwanese independence and sovereignty with china, who was quick to dismiss taiwan being a sovereignty at all and insisted that taiwan was part of china and not independent in the least. .

Sometimes, in various different scenes through time, france has a tiny curl coming out of his ponytail, over his shoulder. This could have to do with the constant wars between france and england, and loss and reclaimed territory as the battles went on through the ages. Also australia has two bits of hair that stick up in the front. This might indicate something to do with territory and england and new zealand and splitting up countries and areas, or frankly, this could just be his hairstyle.

Notable exceptions to this theory would be, of course, russia. Same with poland, since one of russia’s first memorable lines is “hello, i am russia, my hobby is partitioning poland!”. One would lead you to think that in various scenes over time in the anime, poland would have ahoges everywhere, like greece, but he does not. Germany, after world war two, would have ahoges and curls all over the place given that he was split up between so many countries, and then split with capitalists against the communist countries, notably america and russia. While some fans happily have prussia refer to germany as in “west”, as in “west germany”, meaning that prussia himself would be east germany, or the communist side controlled by russia. This seems to be based in fandom, however, and hasn’t seen any use in the actual manga, comic strips and of course, anime. However, it doesn’t appear that germany has an ahoge, or ever had one.