| Story The series presents an allegorical interpretation of political and historic events, particularly of the World War II era, in which the various countries are represented by anthropomorphic characters. Hetalia is a portmanteau combining hetare (Japanese for "useless") and Italia. This is to make light of Italy's apparent cowardice during World War II.
Himaruya originally created Hetalia as an online webcomic, and so far two tankobon have been published by Gentosha Comics, the first on March 28, 2008 and the second on December 10, 2008. The series was later adapted into drama CDs, and an anime series created by Studio Deen has also begun streaming online.
The main historical events portrayed in this work occur between World War I and World War II. The series often uses satire and comedy to address well-known and lesser-known historical facts alike. Historical political and military interaction between countries is represented in Hetalia as social and romantic interaction between the characters; the webcomic version in particular depicts military and economic incursions using innuendo.
This story has the part which was created by referencing Wikipedia, so the licence of GFDL is applied to this story. |