This week we talked about Hetalia and comedy in anime. I will use this blog post to talk about the fall of Hetalia in popular culture and the many flawed aspects of it, from its use of racial stereotypes to its fetishization of WWII. Now, Hetalia isn't the first anime to use WWII as either an implied inspiration or the exact setting (such as Grave of the Fireflies and Joker Game), but it is probably the worst anime to do it. I've never been particularly engaged in Hetalia, though I knew a few people in middle school who were fans of it. This seems to be the case for most people: they enjoyed the lighthearted, ridiculous humor as kids, but then grew out of it as they became adults and gained higher standards for themselves and the mediums they enjoyed. A big, jarring red flag for me was its usage of Axis Powers in the title. I never really paid attention to it, and during class it was pretty much the first time I realized how horrible it was. It was called Axis Powers ....
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