Hetalia: World Series 1 Season Three (Limited Edition)
$22
"Like I could just take a whole day to lick my own balls."
-Greece
"Japan digs my sexy cat ears."
-Greece
"You peed on the floor."
-Spain
Welcome back Hetalia, welcome back. Countries in the skin of people walking around and interacting with one another still holds up quite nicely with strange lessons about other cultures and stereotypes given short stories.
Though the major nations of Earth are still the stars with Japan, Italy and Germany in front, smaller nations are explored in sitcom-esque situations. Moments through history are once again given a new way to be interpreted. Who knew Prussia was such a jerk, trying to conquer most of Europe. Luckily Hungary stepped in for Austria. One thing is for certain though, Poland sucks. It's these things I can now write about countries learning about their history that makes it even more worth it to watch Hetalia. You really learn history and that most countries are jerks.
Some funny facts about how the Swiss should have been conquerors, but instead became bankers is so insightful. Lack of farmland, but well-toned mercenaries should have led them to take over and dominate Europe. However, in the cartoon seeing how well Swiss banks work, France tries them out, with horrible results due to the fact everyone went on strike. Strikes are extremely common in France.You become a walking book report and don't eve realize it.I think some of my new favorite shorts were "Boss Spain and Chibi Romano" and Japan touring the rest of the world. Boss Spain and Chibi Romano is like a sitcom with Spain trying to deal with the annoying brat that is Romano, which basis in reality was rebellion and other countries wanting to take Romano from Spain. Japan touring Greece is funny, because of the extremely odd cat innuendo. Then there's the fight between Greece and Turkey over whose friend Japan is. I love the tour of Italy by Italy, leads to Japan taking on his style. This of course infuriates Germany, who doesn't need another Italy. Then in the end you see Britain reaching out to be friends with Japan. England is so sad to be alone.
Comedy shines through every history lesson, Each character like our nations today and throughout time hate each other. They all act human, by being petty and holding grudges. The dubbing also is an added touch. I'm sure we wouldn't get the jokes from the subtitled version, which is included. The female narrator alone talks like a valley girl whose a bitch about the other countries. Each of the countries has a cartoony stereotypical accent that I believe wouldn't be as funny unless you made them sound like hipsters. America spits out Bro any chance he gets.
Like always from Funimation, clean looking video and audio. You do get an extra disc, but I don't know why it's content couldn't be on the the first. It has clean openings and closings. I also enjoyed a file on every historical point of reference or cultural note. An example would be Greece having a lot of cats. The notes on the extra disc tell me that Greece has a huge cat population, which I didn't know about.
There's many different points of historical interest that boil down to two idiots fighting each other that you should enjoy. Though episodes are short your getting two hours of them.
P.S. Sweden is a freak.
The DVDs were provided by the publisher for review
