Hetalia: Axis Powers - 04
Short Synopsis: Japan makes his appearance.
Episode Rating: 7/10 (Enjoyable)
One thing I don’t get with this series is why they’re bothering to make next-episode previews. I mean, what’s the point, the episodes are just random strings of sketches, why would you need a 30 second preview of something that’s only 5 minutes long?
Anyway, in this episode you really can see that the original Hetalia was just a string of random comics put together. This episode has about five of these, mostly dealing with Japan, but there’s also a short skit about Italy’s history, where it was ruled by Austria.
The reference from U-Boats to giant robots was quite nice, since the second world war probably played a huge role the popularization of he giant robot-genre, though I do hope that Japan in the future episodes is going to get a bit more made fun of. Apart from the U-Boat references, he felt more like another straight guy for all the Italy jokes (okay, and the penis joke, but that one didn’t work too well).
The history-lesson was nice though. I never knew about those long Italian wars which nearly completely destroyed the Italy which was thriving the renaissance. If I understood this correctly, Italy was in the middle of a war between France and Spain, and it ended up fighting countless wars with France, and eventually it lost its powers when France allied itself with the Ottoman Empire. After the wars, Austria came and took control over the country for a while.
I checked this out and wow….chibi countries and 2001 space odissey music parody and a whole lot more crazy stuff.
Though i apreciate it only lasts 5 minutes,don’t know if i could take 30 minutes of it.
Comment by totoum — February 18, 2009 @ 21:37
The penis joke was actually cut short because it was more on the difference of culture of how Europeans behave in baths opposed to the Japanese rather than just that Japan is rather… unendowed. xD
Poking fun at Japan is done more subtlely than the other countries (because it’s written for a primarily Japanese audience), but it is quite played up that he’s a quiet otaku who’s obsessed with cute things (and a complete push over when it comes to America as the first episode showed).
I’ll go dig out the author’s notes for the comic strips that matches up with the episodes and post them here in a bit. (And once again, like to say that the person posting those comments in the shoutbox isn’t me. I should change my name or something…)
Comment by Lika — February 19, 2009 @ 4:28
Yeah, it’s a shame that there are idiots like this. I’ve banned the guy from the shoutbox, let’s hope he’ll shut up now.
Comment by psgels — February 19, 2009 @ 8:26
I have the same complain on the preview. Why bother a preview if it’s just 5 minutes long anywayz =_= Geez . . . it just made me more desperate to see the next episode x_x
Comment by Sapphire Pyro — February 19, 2009 @ 15:14