Re-Watching Hetalia!

A friend came round today and I showed her some of the Hetalia. And naturally we had to start at the beginning, and we watched a few episodes, and as I watched it again (which I hadn't done for a few months now) I really feel as though going back to the series has... I dunno, enlightened me somehow on what Hetalia is like. Inevitably, when you go into fandoms, fans go very in depth with characters. I'm not saying it's a BAD thing, in fact, it's wonderful to get all different angles, takes, and interpretations on various characters, but of course you get caught up in it, and sometimes you lose track of the original character completely.

And of course, the Japanese and American both have different interpretations of the nations. The Japanese, for example, play the more sentimental moments of the anime extremely well, whilst the Americans focus more on the humour and the various quirks that each character has. And there are subtle differences. I watched the subbed (just couldn't bear the dubbed voices, no matter how funny it may be) and England never swears so much in the original, and neither are there any references to France as a 'frog' or anything like that. Some stuff took a bit of adjusting, because in the original show, the characters do lack a bit of development, especially to start with.

But still, re-watching the whole thing reminds me of how light-hearted the whole programme is, and is meant to be. Ultimately, besides the occasional (well, a lot) of dirty jokes, the meaning behind the show feels surprisingly pure, innocent and optimistic. You might think that the show doesn't take stuff like wars and battles and loss of life very seriously, but to me it just shows a... brighter look on life. You notice that despite all the wars the nations have obviously participated in, they merely pick themselves up and continue on as usual. There's very little, true hatred between the nations. They might bicker and 'fight' and glare daggers at each other, but when they do that we only laugh, because we know they're not serious.

Forgive and forget, this is what the show feels like it's telling you. But of course by 'forget' it merely means 'forget' negative relationships and feelings. It doesn't mean that you 'forget' soldiers who have sacrificed themselves fighting and those who have their whole lives destroyed by wars and battles. It just means 'move on'. You're not going to gain anything by moping and seething.

And we never see any of the nations mope and seethe with a desire for revenge, comic purposes aside. The show is just so... positive and moving in that way. I think I remember what made me fall in love with it so much. :3