Hima hasnât grown, the new season wonât be better
ok, the title is sort of strong but let me explain why I feel this way and maybe you can correct me if Iâm wrong and youâve read the whole post.
Look at our main boys in this new art on https://hetalia-ws.com/ the new official website. Notice anything odd? Thatâs right, for some ungodly reason china has the face an anime girl makes during an ecchi panty shot. Why do I think this is a symbol that the new season of hetalia wonât be better?
Because hima is sticking with his old representation of china, which by itself is very problematic and I find a good representative of whatâs to be in store for us with the other minor characters with problematic portrayals.Â
âWhy is himaâs china problematic?â
Well, weâll start with the feminization of China⊠Nothing wrong with gnc people or femininity in general obviously, itâs just the way asian men are constantly degraded for their femininity/ not being enough of a âmanâ. I might have even let this slide if japan received similar treatment since while it isnât a good stereotype, not all stereotypes can be haha funny quirky Adidas bear, and this is a stereotype which in the west is often extended towards asian men in general, if you think westerners can tell the difference between someone whoâs japanese and someone whoâs chinese⊠Well youâre wrong actually. But the thing is, hima didnât. Maybe he was knew this, maybe he was uncomfortable with it, but either way Japan didnât get this similar portrayal which really doesnât help his case against japanese imperialism but thatâs still a stretch and a topic for another day honestly. This disconnect between Japan and Chinaâs portrayal is one of the biggest grips that I, as a chinese person have with this show specifically, and if you say no but mah somft uwu femboy china!! This isnât me speaking out of my ass, many other asian people Iâve met feel equally uncomfortable with the popular fanon and canon femboy china portrayals. Â
Why is only China feminized as extremely for traditional cultural aspects despite japan sharing the same traits? (long hair as a symbol of confucianism/respect for elders, not feminine at all in traditional chinese culture. Hanfu vs Kimono, why does china always have those long sleeves while those are absent on japan? This is clearly an influence of traditional fashion yet why does japan not have unrealistically long sleeves on his modern day uniform as well? )
Why is China overly obsessed with cute things when japan is the one who Makes them? Wouldnât it make more sense for them both to like cute things? Why does china have the hello kitty knock off when Japan is the one who it came from and sanrio is pretty icnoic of Japanese kawaii culture? Iâm not even going to talk about the concept of japan covering up itâs warcrimes with cute stuff because I highly doubt that is himaâs intention, but if youâre interested you could do some reading on that on the side.
âWhy does this mean hetalia season 7 wonât be better?â
Quite frankly, it shows hima has shown no growth. Now we canât judge problematic aspects of other nations portrayals atm, since in the shot theyâre all just sittin there, rather in character or ânormalâ. But Chinaâs weird hentai girl face is a clear indicator that Himaâs continuing his problematic portrayal of at least one character. This can also be used as an indicator of whatâs to come. femboy china probably also means the problematic aspects of hetalia canon and fanon will continuing. Including valley girl poland, weirdly sexualized ukraine (a country that currently has parts of it being occupied might I add) ex soviet countries only really mentioned in relation to russia, asian nations being weirdly close to japan. And if he does make other countries we can also probably expected colonized countries being weirdly buddies with their colonizer. You might notice a lot of my issues with hetalia relate to asia/east euro bc yeah, Iâm an asian interested in slavs so Iâm a bit more aware of the problematic aspects of those countries representations. It goes without saying but just because I didnât mention a problematic aspect doesnât mean I condone it, it probably just isnât something that came to me off the top of my head.
âDoes hetalia deserve to be canceled for this?/ Why are you still in the fandom if you hate cannon so much?â
These questions are very valid actually, and Iâll start from answering the last one. I canât speak for other fans of âhistorically accurateâ personifications but I feel weâre all in this because we see canonâs flaws and we want hima to do better. There are probably some aspects of canon we do enjoy, be it the parts that are funny or the parts that pleasantly surprise us with their accuracy, or maybe weâre just history buffs. Whatever the case weâre still in the fandom for a reason and thereâs a bit of canon that we like thatâs keeping us here rather then making our own independent country portrayal series.Â
And canceled idk bro. Hetalia is certanantly problematic, think nazi cosplayers, the nazi america blog, people saying poc donât need rep because eastern europeans are also oppressed. However I feel thereâs also people that arenât you know, alt right or being groomed by the alt right into extremists. The cringiest people are probably 12 year olds who donât know any better actually, their only real crime is being given a platform to spew their ignorance taught to them by their parents probably. However thereâs definitely people that donât change, and the fact that âdonât be racistâ is so controversial in this fandom for some god damn reason. Why are whole ass adults so unwilling to change their racist/ignorant views? Iâve seen many a child grow /able to refer to their past portrayals of hetalia characters as cringey or problematic, but I havenât seen one one adult admit theyâre in the wrong and apologize.Â
Anyways, while others are praying for new characters Iâm starting to hope that Hima wonât make any since Iâm so convinced now that they wonât be good portrayals and just spread around misinformation that poc will then have to clean up and fix. And donât even get me started on how the western side of the fandom will cling on to these stereotypes as hard as if you were taking away their own mother.Â
Tldr; Chinaâs portrayal here is important as heâs often portrayed in a very problematic manner, and his extreme resemblance to a anime girl in an ecchi shot is a preview of what this season has in story for us. We canât see the season a head of time but China, as a main-ish character gives us insight as to weather hima has grown in the however many years long hiatus heâs been on. I agree with the twitter bashing against western fans for the most part actually, curious how theyâre the ones who tend to support the most problematic portrayals and then give the fandom a name for being problematic actually. This isnât some anti-white/west speech btw, if the portrayals of your countries are all wacky and funny of course youâre going to assume other countries portrayals are accurate and all fun and games as well. However just because your countryâs portrayal isnât problematic doesnât mean other people are too uptight for wanting better portrayal of their own country.Â
Iâm still interested in seeing what season 7 will bring us, but Iâm a lot less optimistic of the fandom/show not being as bad as âantisâ say it is.
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