Axis Powers - Hetalia

Written by Little_Wolf-18 on October 8, 2012 at 4:16 AM

First things first: The anime is actually called “Hetalia - Axis Powers”, can be found under that name (http://www.anime-access.com/anime/H/Hetalia_-_Axis_Powers_%28TV%29), and is not a special but an own series. The poster’s the wrong one too. But that’s just for the record, and for anybody who might stumble about this and wonder why there aren’t any files.

Story -- Crack-tastic, random, unique, 101 eps plus a movie long, and with five minutes only per episode. The latter which is a luck, or otherwise I wouldn’t have made it through.

The concept is amazing. Countries displayed as anime characters seem like a good formula for clever parody, be it of country relations, negotiations, contemporary politics and economics, and…so…on. Right? Far from it, in this case.

“Hetalia” is loosely based on world history. Where it cites events, facts, dates, or names, it gives them perfectly right, and these moments might even be educational; at the same time, however, there is essentially no chronology, effectively failing any attempts at learning history from this anime along. It might help you through yawn-inducing history lessons, it might teach you a few interesting pieces of trivia, but that’s all there is to both its educational value and depth. Other than that, all there is to the story is a series of skit-like gags.

Characters -- Everyone is one big, bad stereotype. Of course the resulting jokes aren’t clean either. “Hetalia” is racist without end, but somehow manages to be equally racist towards everyone involved, so much it’s actually hard to take any offence at all.

That being said, however, stereotypes rarely work throughout a whole anime. Where at the beginning the characters are hopelessly charming and endearing in their faults, latest by the 25th ep, they’ve become one-joke characters; underdeveloped, flat, and ultimately only worthy of eye-rolling. New characters tend to save the cast, but they are no better than the core cast, and cannot hold up the entertainment value for long. Relationships can be confusing due to lacking chronology. And this might only be me, but seeing hardcore historical conflicts reduced to skits where both sides poke each other with sticks is rather inadequate to me (though it might induce squeals of “cute” in some). A different take on a theme that isn’t hilarious at all, that it is; but there’s a delicate line between “funny retelling” and “inadequate ridiculing”, and that line is often overstepped IMO -- not by the one-sided portrayal of the characters, but by the simple reduction of real, historical wars to wok-whacking skits.

There’s a wide variety of characters, though most of the cast is male (they included but barely a handful of females barely showing up in a handful of episodes at all… during 101 episodes plus movie. =.= Most countries were patriarchic in the past, but it actually was pretty annoying to me. Okay, okay… I’ll stop it already.)

Dialogue isn’t much different from what you’d expect from the charas. Quirky, random, gloriously simple, bordering on stupid most of the time, yet funny at the beginning. But only there. Punchlines get worn out quickly, resulting in some monotony that latest by World Series can be thrown out, and where gutter humour is polished for the fact that it is gutter humour, it still belongs in the gutter. On the upside, the voice acting is so much over-the-top that you can’t help but laugh, at least as long as there’s no characters with non-fitting accents (something that becomes a real problem by the time more side characters flood the scene).

Music is ordinary, sometimes dissonant, but with a fitting ending song (there’s no time for an actual opener); the ending presents itself in slightly different varieties for each character. It also has that tendency to get stuck in people’s ears and be annoying there. (Floating around in my head during a workshop a few weeks ago: “In my right hand is a white flag. In my left hand is PASTAAAA!”…)

Bright colour palettes, plain to nonexistent backgrounds, good costuming, enough detail to get facial expressions across, and very similar designs for most side characters making it hard to tell them apart most of the time. Ultimately, the artwork is highly simplified, the animation isn’t special, and none of those two made me care about this anime even in the slightest.

Having said all of this; as much as “Hetalia” is plotless, obnoxious, cheap, and inadequate, it works, at least at first. As much as the time setting (and what it’s been reduced to) may leave you squirming, it’s hard to take personal offence. The characters are charming in all their faults. The voice acting, as much as it is over the top, ultimately fits. Sardonic moments, few as they may be, work well. For a while, that is. After a while, one-joke charas, recycled lines, clichés, randomness, and crazy antics simply get old.

I really like the concept; mostly as it allows for at least semi-clever parody. Granted, I’d much rather have seen it in a contemporary setting, but there goes that. Nonetheless, I expected something along the lines of Gintama or Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei. There goes that, too, however. “Hetalia” is a spoof, and only a spoof.

The results are satisfying when there’s trivia to be learned or genuine anecdotes to be told; and it might very well help you through history lessons at school etc. But there’s nothing deep to be expected. “Hetalia” essentially is a show with ADHD, jumping around at hyper-speed in search of historical buffoonery, ethnic jokes, and stupidity -- the combination of which might be enough to entertain those who expect and like a mere spoof, want something simplified and ridiculous to lay back and not care about content. It's not hard to see the charm in that, just as it isn't hard to see the charm in the characters, as stereotyped and faulted as they may be. However, shallow jokes and characters can only work for so long for me before they become yawn-inducing, and some inadequacy thrown in the mix doesn't make things better for me.

It's not the worst place to go to. As mentioned above, it's not hard to see the charm in this anime. If you like the concept, find history lessons boring, expect a mere spoof with all randomness and stupidity that comes with that, don't mind its length, don't mind some inadequacy, and merely want something to lay back, laugh, and not care about content; this might entertain you. I, however, set my expectations too high, and I ultimately don't care about the whole package that is the "Hetalia" anime.