BAW. America Cleans Out the Storage is finally done, and it didn't disappoint. I didn't cry manly tears the way I did when I first read the manga, but I did get the shivers. Aside from the filler material about hardboiled eggs and grenades, it was a good episode. (The grenade bit doesn't really work without its Romano counterpart, for whatever reason.)
Wow, Kidmerica is so adorable that I didn't even notice how weird his outfit is. Sai Saishii, you could take lessons from this kid.
Oh, there seems to be something in my eye...
If you were to ask me my favourite genre of anime, it would probably be moe comedy, like Galaxy Angel or Love Hina. I like punipuni art and silly moeblobs and dating sims in general. The problem is that pretty much every such anime is full of moe girls, and I'm firmly of the idea that girls have cooties. The few anime that are primarily about male characters are generally reverse-harems, and they usually have a frightful shōjo art style that I just can't look at for more than a minute. There are plenty of comedies that have entirely female casts and are drawn in a cute style, but there apparently were no male equivalents for the ladies and totally gay dudes to watch.
That's probably why I like Hetalia so much. In general, it's a cute, lighthearted comedy about a number of moe-moe men (with a handful of ladies and one loli, to be entirely fair). It was exactly the kind of series I wanted to read. It had a good style of humour, art that I didn't hate, lovable characters, and- most amazingly- sometimes, something approaching plot-like substance.
When I was first starting to read Hetalia, America Cleans Out the Storage was the first story that struck me as unique, as something I wouldn't find in any other manga. (About Russia's Terrifying History was like that too.) It really established Hetalia's setting and the characters of America and England. And the important thing, I think, was how Himaruya treated the America Revolutionary War as a war. People died, concepts like right and wrong started to fade away, and even if some things were gained, it ended up with everyone involved being hurt to some degree. That is the greatest thing about Hetalia- it's usually sort of silly, but depending on how you view it, it can be as serious and meaningful as you want it to be.
Well, that was a long and random and possibly controversial rant. Ah well! We can get back to giggling about pasta and tea next week, I suppose.
Feature: 06/09/09 | Posted By: Tally Solleni | 0 comments | Hetalia: Axis Powers
