written by Hidekaz Himaruya

What if all the nations of the world were anthropomorphized hunky bishounen (or the very occasional cute bishoujo)? It would certainly change one’s view of history, wouldn’t it? It’s the eve of the Second World War, and Germany is gearing up to invade Poland. Germany is a serious soul who takes both his orders and his vast responsibilities seriously. He has also acquired two important allies: Japan, soft-spoken, hard-working, and a bit naïve because he was until recently a shut-in, and Italy, a cheerful but profoundly spineless soul whose incompetence seems to undermine the so-called Axis Powers at every turn. As a consequence, Italy’s nickname is “Hetalia.”

The title of this popular webcomic turned printed manga Hetalia: Axis Powers by Hidekaz Himaruya is a portmanteau of the Japanese word hetare (“useless” or “incompetent”) and Italia (Italy). Despite extensive footnotes supplied by the original Japanese edition and an invaluable new four pages of endnotes exclusive to the Tokyopop English-language edition, this portmanteau is not explained anywhere in the first volume. Fortunately, it’s not “need-to-know” information, and Hetalia is an enjoyable piece of entertainment that takes one of the grimmest periods of 20th century history and transforms it into a most bearable lightness of slapstick—and on occasion bawdy—comedy.
 
This is not satirical social commentary. This is fun. It is therefore important not to try to take Hetalia seriously, either for its nuanced view of geopolitics or its depiction of the anthropomorphized countries. Both are consistently disappointing. The countries themselves are based upon broad-stroke national stereotypes—apparently American in origin, according to Himaruya—that are, if anything, divorced from historic context. The cheerful coward (Italy) and the straight man (Germany) make for a classic comic combination, and an ever-growing supporting cast of characters provides virtually endless opportunities for situational comedy, most of it delivered in the popular Japanese yon-koma (four-panel) format.
 
It is very much to Himaruya’s credit, actually, that the large cast of characters remains distinguishable. Besides the Italy, Germany, and Japan trio, other recurring dramatis personae in volume one alone include the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, China, Austria, Spain, and more. Each country has distinctive personality traits and character designs. Particular idiosyncrasies include the United States being on good terms with extraterrestrials (obscure reference to The X-Files, perhaps?) and China’s penchant for ending every sentence with the nonsense syllable “-aru.” Naturally, the characters are all attractively drawn, providing an abundance of surefire fan fodder.
 
In fact, Hetalia is already a heavy-hitting fan-favorite. The animated adaptation has a devoted following worldwide, which is bound to make the manga, handsomely published in a deluxe trim size with eight full-color pages, a popular proposition as well. Readers will come for the characters, stay for the comedy, and perhaps a few will even graduate to serious accounts of global history. At the very least, this is the wackiest story premise to cross manga in a long time—and that’s saying something—and even casual readers will find themselves—perhaps in spite of themselves—eagerly wanting more. Recommended.

-- Casey Brienza

Commenting closes after a story has been up for 2 months.