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Why does Hetalia include random countries?

If you know some countries (I know generally 90% of the world's countries because I have a map at home and I generally have an idea of which countries are more well known), and their histories (I have curiosities with many countries and their histories). Then Hetalia shouldn't be a problem for you to understand of whats going on (Lol, I literally laugh at each episode and I think some of you people do as well).

Now here's the part that I can't explain clearly. Hetalia included European countries (even Liechtenstein...), North American countries (USA and Canada), Asian countries (East Asia and few Southeast ones), few African countries (SEYCHELLES? REALLY? BARELY ANYONE KNEW OR HEARD OF HER BUT WHY INCLUDE HER?), even micro nations (ahem, Sealand) This here is somewhat strange, if they gave the spotlight to those famous and popular countries (Germany, Japan, Russia, France, U.S., China, Italy), why didn't it give some spotlight to other famous countries such as Greece (well sometimes, but too little), Turkey (just like Greece but not enough), Lowlands (Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. These countries are world loved and some of the best, yet Hetalia only made them appear in 2 or 3 episodes), Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland. Though these guys have some of their own scenes but still too little), Middle East (lol there's none), Africa (no Egypt) and Oceania (AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND!)

So my question is: why did Hetalia choose these countries?

Thx!

7 Answers

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  • 7 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Bare in mind that the creator of Hetalia is Japanese. I'm not Japanese, but I'm also East Asian myself, and I know that most East Asians are unfamiliar with what the Middle East, Africa and South America are like. Also, a lot of East Asians have trouble telling apart Arabs, Africans and South Americans, sort of similar to how Caucasians have trouble telling Asians apart and think that "we're all the same". This is called the cross-race effect.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-race_effect

    This supposedly applies to Caucasians to, yet Japanese people are heavily exposed to the western media (more so than the other East Asian countries). Affluent Japanese people also prefer travelling to Europe, North America and Australia than other places as these locations are more politically stable. I guess that the European countries in Hetalia can hence resonate with the Japanese audiences more than African/Middle Eastern/South American countries.

    I am surprised as to why Hetalia does not have a single South American country though. There are Japanese people working overseas in this continent. They are usually managers that have been sent overseas by Japanese technology firms to supervise projects in another country. This also applies to Oceania. A lot of the Japanese nouve riche bought houses in Ocenia when the Japanese economy was at its peak (i.e. before the recession) as property prices in Australia and New Zealand are much lower than Japan.

    It would be "rare" for a Japanese person to live in the Neatherlands, Greece, etc etc in a similar sense that Dutch and Greek people living here in Asia are uncommon. I only know a family of Dutch expats and I don't know any Turkish, Belgian, Greek and Luxembourgian people personally.

    Greece and Turkey did not have such a major role in World War 2 (the Ottoman Empire had a major role in WW1though). Scroll down to the "conflict between" row in the table of this web page and you could see that the countries named for WW2 are the same as the main characters of Hetalia:

    http://www.diffen.com/difference/World_War_I_vs_Wo...

    In regards to Leichenstein, I can safely say that most Asians do not know about its existence (same for Sealand, really). However, a lot of Asians that I know who travel a lot and have been to Switzerland would argue that it is the most beautiful place on earth. It's sort of like how lots of white Australians love to travel to Bali and think that it is one of the best places on earth since they love to swim and sunbath and the environment is full of nature. Switzerland fits our "standard" of beauty and a lot of Asians that I know think of it as "utopia-like". We love the Swiss countryside with the little cottages on the green plains of alpine mountains. I won't be surprised if the creator of Hetalia has a similar opinion! Based on the images that I saw online, Leichenstein apparently looks very similar to Swizterland, so to many Japanese people, Leichenstein is also one of the prettiest countries on earth.

    In regards to why the creator focused so much on "minor" countries and micronations, I guess that he was just trying to be random. I could almost imagine him browsing through a list of micronations on Wikipedia and picking random ones to personify. It is theoretically possible for the creator of Hetalia to know more about Sealand than Brazil, but this is very unlikely, given that Brazil is the largest country in South America, Brazil is hosting the World Cup this year (the Asian media will be reporting on Brazil) and Brazil has much more "culture" and "history" than Sealand.

    I do agree that there's way to much emphasis on Seychelles! Hetalia also seems too Eurocentric at times, but maybe the creator of this series is personally fascinated by Europe or something.

    Well, history will always be the selection of a selection. It's not just Hetalia - you could find this in every History textbook! After all, it is theoretically impossible to retell every single event of the past.

  • 5 years ago

    Hetalia Countries

  • 4 years ago

    Hetalia Africa

  • CanSu
    Lv 5
    7 years ago

    i dont really mind to see random countries... im from turkiye and even sealand has more episode that toruko but still fun... so i dont mind... now show become beautiful world so maybe you see those you wanna see more now.

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  • 5 years ago

    I need more information before I can give an answer

  • Anonymous
    7 years ago

    Wow, wow...slow down about Seychelles...I'm from there lol! But I totally understand. I was surprised that Hetalia included it cuz it's so tiny.

    I will like to see some bigger African countries represented but like the above poster said, the author may not be very familiar with the cultural stereotypes of specific African nations.

  • Fujaku
    Lv 5
    7 years ago

    The author of the webcomics only wrote about countries he knows about. Meaning yes, he knows more about Sealand than he does about Brazil. Let that sink in for a moment.

    Anyway, the reason I don't think they have Africa is because a lot of those countries have really similar cultures. They don't have the Middle-Easy as too controversial. The majority of the countries you named specifically do appear in the show though. Minus Luxembourg, but does anyone care about Luxembourg? I cannot tell you one thing about Luxembourg. Sweden definitely appears way more than Seychelles though. Sweden and Finland get their own little arc while Seychelles gets 3 little cameos.

    Another reason is that the main 8 countries have done way more than the other countries. Like, what would they concentrate an episode of Luxembourg about? The main 8 have done more in history, and Hetalia being a history anime decides to concentrate on those parts.

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