Hetalia Axis Powers episode 28

I realised that lately I’ve been doing a lot of silly, random posts and I have gotten out of the habit of writing intelligently about my anime. So get ready for some critical analysis that will explore the various tropes employed by Hetalia Axis Powers. I will try to keep all form of humour out of my writing and act as pretentious as I possibly can.

*Pfft* As if I could act serious while reviewing Hetalia.

This week was a Hetalia Christmas special. Why they decided to have a Christmas special in August is beyond me. I suppose Finland did say he was a bit early but really, it’s still, according to my amazing powers of mental arithmetic, 143 days ’till Christmas. You could say that Hetalia won’t be around at Christmas but anime always seem to toss in Christmas episodes willy-nilly. It’s generally believed that a Christmas episode should be aired at Christmas but apparently not in Japan. Even Toradora, which aired during Christmas, waited for over a month before they stuck in the Christmas episode. Some people might call this bastardising an anime to suit public opinion but I would love my Christmas episode to air a bit closer to the 25th of December.

I think we are now all graduates to Deens 'How to re-use animation' course

Now settle down folks and I’m going to tell you a little Christmas Story that you may have heard already but it’s worth hearing again. In the harsh winter of 1918, Europe was still caught up in the Great War. Many people joked that the war would be ‘over by Christmas’ back in 1916 at yet here they were. Young men were left rotting in trenches as their commanders sat back in their cosy outposts, pouring over maps and unable to formulate any sort of reasonable plan to break the deadlock. On the 25th of December, the British soldiers sat in their trenches trying to warm their hands over a small fire while trying to shoo away the rats from their rations when they heard the sound of singing. Rather bad military like singing was coming from the German trench but it was unmistakably Christmas Carols. Some of the British soldiers started to sing some of their own songs and soon a battle was on to see which side could sing their chosen Carol with the most energy and gusto (with no marks being awarded for singing in tune thankfully). Soon both sides had gotten out of their trenches and were together in no-mans land. A group of them had even started a game of football. The next day, both sides went straight back to shooting each other.

Now I’m not sure if this was the incident this episode was referring to but I like to believe it is. It’s my favourite war tale and my favourite Christmas tale ever. The creator of Hetalia, in response to the angry Koreans, said that he thought a lot of world problems could be solved if they went at it Hetalia styled, and that story does seem to be a very Hetalia-like thing to happen.

I was half expecting him to start melting, wicked witch of the west style

It was a bit of a meh episode to be honest. The only real lol moment was Finland as Santa Claus. Well, I also laughed at the choice of present for Germany but that’s because I’m an immature teenage boy who laughs at any reference to pornography. Plus I was a bit disappointed that they went back to Italy’s closing song. I would’ve preferred them to all start singing Jingle Bells.