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YMMV / Hetalia: Axis Powers
aka: Axis Powers Hetalia

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The following have their own pages:

Other examples:

    A-C 
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Because the characters are countries, and no country has a clean past, it's not very hard to find much darker interpretations of the characters, especially when set during the past for any colonial power. In fact, the series has its own page for the trope.
  • Alternate Self Shipping: Himaruya's liberal use of opposite-gender counterparts and AUs in his own work, along with the possible nature of civil wars and so on, has led to some selfcest fics. One increasingly popular fanon pairing is Prussiacest, which basically pairs Prussia either with a copy of himself or his Nyotalia counterpart. The logic behind it being that only Prussia is awesome enough to be with Prussia.
  • Americans Hate Tingle: While there are definitely Western fans who like Japan, there are also a sizable number of fans who are 'meh' about him at best and brand him as an Extreme Doormat, Flat Character, and/or even the series' Creator's Pet at worst due to his relatively stoic personality and him representing the author's homeland.
    • There are even fans who take offense to a Visible Minority of the Japanese fandom warping his character and cite this as a reason to not like him, forgetting that not only is that an absurd reason to hate the character himself (is it the character Japan's fault that his fandom likes warping his canon personality?) but that the Western fandom, or rather, American and Canadian fans do the exact same thing to America and Canada.
    • Additionally, compare the popularity of any Japan pairing in Japanese fandom to its popularity in Western fandom. Of all Japan pairings, only Greece/Japan comes anywhere close to matching its popularity in Japanese fandom (and it's mainly because its popularity in Japanese fandom is relatively modest compared to other pairings like England/Japan and America/Japan) and pairings like Turkey/Japan and Netherlands/Japan are virtually nonexistent in Western fandom in spite of having decent-sized fanbases in Japanese fandom.
  • Audience-Alienating Premise:
    • While Anthropomorphic Personification is a popular concept, many think it's uncomfortable, if not outright disrespectful to use it on the histories of real life countries. Particularly since World War II is a touchy subject that still affects a lot of countries, so naturally, any people living or born in the countries that were directly impacted by the war will be naturally turned away.
    • If the "uwu-ification" of a war that includes the mass genocide of a group of people didn't already turn people off, the personified countries being walking stereotypes of how the author perceives other countries certainly did. The depiction of South Korea, for example, was so poorly received by many Koreans (criticisms included historical inaccuracies and making light of the Japanese Imperial Army's forced conscription and sex slavery of Korean men and women), that the character was cut from the anime broadcast in Korea almost entirely and from many non-anime official releases since 2009. [1]
  • Awesome Ego: Prussia actually has an Image Song called "My Song That is Written By Me, For Me" that is as much of an ego trip as it sounds. He's one of the biggest Ensemble Darkhorses in the fandom.
  • Awesome Music: Mein Gott. While fitting for someone as awesome as Prussia, it's impossible to NOT acknowledge the awesomeness of this song.
  • Base-Breaking Character: Everyone when it boils down to it, and especially those who ever had an Empire, will have a morally questionable history in somebody's mind.
    • There's strong division over whether England should be the seme or uke. As custom for slash fics and art, many fans will exaggerate England's more submissive and feminine traits. But then you have fans giving him the badass seme treatment, often to Ron the Death Eater levels, because he was an empire and therefore must always top.
    • Russia is a... unique character, to say the least. He is portrayed with having some major psychological problems moreso than the other characters, especially in earlier strips. Therefore, fans' viewpoints on him tend to be polarizing. And let's not get started on his many fanon portrayals...And unsurprisingly, he isn't well liked by Ukrainian fans.
    • Speaking of, Ukraine has been criticized for being wildly inaccurate to real life Russian-Ukrainian relations, to the point where many find it cringeworthy at best to downright offensive and accidental propaganda at worst. That being said, Ukraine is still well liked by the Hetalia fandom, and even Ukrainian fans take a liking to her, mainly due to her friendly personality and voluptuous appearance. Many Ukrainian fans often lean into the Lady of War personality that a sketch by Himaruya seemingly implies, and depict her not taking any crap from Russia.
    • Poland. While he is well liked by fans, mostly because of his flamboyant personality and relation to Lithuania, who he is often shipped with, Polish fans can't help but criticize his tendency to be foolish and somewhat cowardly considering Poland's very tumultuous history, and his characterization as a Wholesome Cross Dresser and male Valley Girl, when that is quite inaccurate to the conservative Catholic nation it is in real life.
  • Broken Base: Oh boy, where to start? Funimation's release of the English dub has taken the previously more-or-less united fanbase (outside of Shipping) and shattered it, probably beyond repair. Within hours of Funi showing some rather controversial scenes at a convention, massive flame wars erupted over the script changes and both fans and the haters of the series have gone neck to neck in attacking each other, if fans at each others' throats were not enough. Fans of the dub call it a perfectly-localized version with freshly-researched new lines, while those who hate it call it a cheap, bowdlerized South Park Follow the Leader that goes completely against Himaruya's own views and enters tasteless territory. The flames have yet to die down.
    • To a lesser, more amusing degree, the new Volume Five character designs. Himaruya seems to have done an art upgrade on Romano, Hungary (whose chest is now strangely flat in the cover, though is normal in the inside pages), Austria and Spain. Hetalia LJrs are conflicted as to whether the changes are good/bad. YMMV.
    • The Nyotalias, too. While most fans enjoy it, others seem to think of it as needless Fanservice. Also, many people have been complaining about fangirls taking the female version of the personification of their own nation/their favourite character.
      • Fem!Prussia in particular seems to have received a lot of hate for being inaccurate, mainly thanks to things as being an Action Girl wearing a miniskirt.
    • The female characters in general tend to break the base. Do they have any potential to be as interesting as the male nations, are they just useless filler and dragging the story down, and is Himaruya a misogynist for not making more of them or making them "lesser" countries? Tread very carefully in these discussions. Sometimes this feud can also extend between fans of the canon female nations vs. those who prefer the Nyotalia ones.
  • Cargo Ship:
    • Seborga's inflatable ring... with hearts.
    • Austria and His Piano OTP.
    • Germany and Herr Stick.
    • England/Russia and random alcohol/vodka.
  • Crazy Is Cool: Prussia. His ego could choke a horse, he's a boundlessly ambitious psychotic punk who delights in mischief, and yet caves at the sight of cute things... a freak among freaks, and a fan favorite. Plus, he, Spain and France together form a posse often dubbed the 'Bad Touch Trio', 'The Badass Trio', or 'The Bad Friends Trio.' They're just a trio of Badness.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: Some of the lines of the Funimation dub are this. Romano especially seems to receive the brunt of them.

    D-H 
  • Die for Our Ship: Unfortunately even this fandom has instances of this, but thankfully it hasn't reached dangerous levels yet (now, as for Ship-to-Ship Combat...) for examples go here.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Russia - subverted and played straight. See the main entry for details.
  • Dry Docking: More than one fan has admitted to shipping England with other characters so that they can have America all to themselves. Or wanting to be the one to make Russia feel better. Or pretending that Greece and/or Turkey aren't interested in Japan. Or...seriously, you can find at least one fan that has this attitude with any nation; you can even find [Insert Nation here]/Reader fics if you know where to look.
    • For the lazy and curious, all you have to do is hit up DeviantArt. Nation/Reader fics are quite popular there.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Prussia, Hungary and Belarus are probably the biggest examples, though with such a huge cast every character is bound to have some sort of a following. And the other Nations may have trouble remembering who Canada is, but the fans sure don't.
    • As a whole, the Nordics is one of the more popular groups. Character wise, Denmark was the most popular until the 2010 Bloodbath where Iceland became the most popular within those few days due to obvious reasons.
      • Take in account this for example: Denmark was an Ensemble Dark Horse before appearing in any strip.
    • It seems that even the most minor of characters can become something like this-Lately, a character who appears in two episodes without even a canon name, has gotten attention just for looking exactly like England and America's lovechild. The fandom has named him Allen Kirkland-Jones, and he already has a fanclub-see for yourself.
    • Canada, especially considering how few strips he's appeared in.
    • Romania to the point where there have started appearing shipping wars between Prussia/Hungary and Romania/Hungary. Even though Romania and Hungary hate each other.
    • Bulgaria. At first, only in the LJ fandom. He has now his own tag in Pixiv (the Japanese equivalent of Deviant Art)
    • England's secretary debuted in the Hetalia Bloodbath 2010, so this is a given.
    • Osaka, especially after the Hetalia Bloodbath 2010.
    • From the Gender Flip versions Fem!England is the most popular of the girls and Male!Belarus seems to be the most popular out of male genderbends judging by the amount of fanart on Pixiv.
    • And if all of the above hasn't given it away, it's pretty clear that Himaruya is very much aware of how popular and loved they are.
    • And no love for Poland?
    • Aside from the main 8 and the Nordics, the Asians seem to be the most popular group. Well, with characters like Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, it's not hard to see why.
    • As of 2021, the ASEAN nations have garnered a significant amount of popularity after their debut, with fanart churned out by the minute the moment they're introduced. It helps that they're some of the most often-requested characters to appear.
    • How popular are they? Singapore made it onto a local news site while Malaysia was a Fountain of Memes even before he received an official design.
  • Fanfic Fuel: What would anthropomorphized versions of America's states look like? How would they behave? Thousands of fanfics have expanded on this topic.
  • Fan Nickname: South Italy is almost always just called Romano by the fandom and the author himself, to avoid confusion with [North] Italy (his name, Veneziano, does not show up nearly as often).
    • At the insistence of early fans, Himaruya supplied many characters with alternate human names. These continue to be used throughout the fandom, such as in Alternate Universe fanfics were the characters are not countries, or as personal names which are used alongside their nation names. Many characters who were not given a human name by Himaruya have a main fanon alternative.
    • Due to his character design, Germania is sometimes called "Legolas".
    • Many Japanese fans refer to England as "Iggy", a shortened version of "Igirisu" (= the UK in Japanese). The English language fandom took this a step further and uses "Iggy" as other characters' nickname for England in fanfics. Although the author has also used "Iggy" in the manga, there's even a strip about England titled "Iggy-Iggy Annoyance".
    • The Taiwanese side of the fandom calls its nation-tan "Wanwan". Others try to bypass Taiwan's lack of "human name" and call her "Meimei", which means "little sister" in Mandarin Chinese, or simply "Mei", which means "plum blossom".
    • Poland calls Lithuania "Liet", which has been adopted by the fandom. It comes from Lietuvos, the endonym for Lithuania.
    • On the non-humanoid side, the bird sometimes found on Prussia's head has been dubbed Gilbird.
  • Fanon: What many fans assume to be true about the series and its characterizations is more often this. Which can be justified in a way, given the material and canon itself. After all, you have history to back it up.
  • Fandom Rivalry:
    • For some reason, with Homestuck, most likely due to both being web-based comic creations that became immensely popular incredibly quickly at around the same time; overwhelming amounts of fanworks and cosplayers for both began around 2009, and the people who'd begin butting heads were therewith. Eventually, the two fandoms have become friends after both sides realized the rivalry was counterproductive.
    • APH also has one with Polandball. The two are pretty similar in premise, but very different in execution, and unlike Hetalia, Polandball was not created by a single author. Polandball fans accuse APH of being historically inaccurate (or at least greatly sugarcoating it) and pandering to Yaoi Fangirls. APH fans in turn accuse Polandball of being dull and having all kinds of unsavory politics.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: It's safe to say that every single combination of two (or more) nations, no matter how cracky or canon-dubious, has someone out there shipping it. That said, there are some non-official (though in most cases, buoyed by Ship Tease) pairings that are preferred by the majority of fans: America/England, Spain/Romano, Poland/Lithuania, Germany/Italy, and Sweden/Finland.
    • The FPCs also tend to vary depending on the region: England/Japan is the runaway FPC in Japanese fan circles and Russia/China is hugely popular with the Russian and Chinese fans, for example.
    • Additionally, incest pairings tend to do well in Japan, which explains why Germany/Prussia, America/Canada, Romano/Veneziano, and Norway/Iceland tend to garner bigger followings there (ESPECIALLY Germancest; it's way, way more popular there than the semi-canon Germany/Italy).
    • Fans love pairing Indonesia with his colonizer Netherlands despite both of them not seen interacting in canon yet.
  • Faux Symbolism: Cyprus's asymmetrical hair make it look like it's been cut in half, his one side making his head look like Greece's and the other more like Turkey's.
    • Or the fact there is the Karpas Peninsula in Cyprus. Which kinda resembles the long hair strand.
  • Fountain of Memes: The 2010 Bloodbath has spawned 60 memes and rising in 4 days.
    • Romano in the dub, at least.
    • The mochis, and how.
  • Foe Yay Shipping: In Fanon, Hungary with Romania, emphasis on the 'foe' part, because they hate each other with a burning passion. They probably have one of the strongest cases of antagonism. And this is true in Real Life, too, as Romanians and Hungarians have somewhat settled down in these regards but still, very understandably, have some serious differences to settle. Doesn't stop fans from making Romania her Third-Option Love Interest, after Austria and Prussia.
  • Genius Bonus: When discussing their Christmas traditions, France describes getting Santa drunk. When Japan is confused, France reassures him that his Papa used to get drunk and hand out presents all the time. Since France is a child of good, ol' SPQR himself, then he must be referring to Saturnalia, a holiday where Rome would get drunk, exchange gifts, and have masters serve and wait-upon its slaves.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • Ukraine's characterization as a crybaby who loves her brother Russia and wishes to see him again has aged very poorly due to the extremely hostile tensions between the two nations, starting as far back as 2014. The sketch about Ukraine feeling torn between West and East is a lot less funny after the Real Life Russian invasion. The real-life conflict has been alluded to in chapter 389 of World Stars, where it is hinted that Ukraine and Russia's relationship is much different now.
    • Belarus' obsession with marrying Russia is also such due to the events of the 2020 election, where Alexander Lukashenko retained the presidency despite widespread protests (which resulted in at least three deaths) and election fraud, in addition to it slowly becoming a vassal state of Russia. In other words, the "marriage" is, in reality, a one-sided situation that the vast majority of Belarussians don't want.
    • England's, so-to-say, lack of grace when trying to coax a young America into becoming his younger brother becomes less humorous when his dub voice actor Scott Freeman was arrested for being in possession of child porn.
    • Less severely, Greece being portrayed a Chick Magnet who Really Gets Around ages somewhat poorly when multiple woman accused his dub voice actor, Vic Mignogna of being a sex pest, which got Mignogna fired.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: In Spain's version of Marukaite Chikyuu, you can hear Soccer/Football sounds, such as a ball being kicked and a referee's whistle being blown. Guess which national team won the 2010 FIFA World Cup?
  • Hollywood Homely: In the FUNimation dub, Russia says about Ukraine, "She's nice, but not much to look at."
    • Word of God says that Belgium's features and manner of dress are plain and inconspicuous.
  • Ho Yay: A page for it here. Though to be fair, it doesn't overwhelm the whole picture.

    I-R 
  • It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: Some fans of the webcomic are not so thrilled about the surprising success of the anime and the influx of new fans. The funny thing is that most of them only started complaining when the fandom was already huge.
  • The Inverse Law of Fandom Levity: While it occasionally alludes to heavy topics, Hetalia: Axis Powers generally engages with world history and culture with a lighthearted tone through parodies of National Stereotypes. By contrast, the fandom has produced works such as the creepypasta Axis Powers Hetalia Episode 23.5 and the horror fangame HetaOni, not to mention the countless works based on "historical Hetalia", a common fandom premise addressing historical events through their Hetalia personifications, often reflecting on the Fridge Horror of the series through how dark and depressing history can actually get.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Russia and Prussia. They've pulled massive crap on others, but have had extremely sympathetic moments as well.
    • Belarus became this when Russia threatened to send her to Siberia because Lithuania expressed reservations about accompanying him to a meeting. Can you imagine your own brother caring so little about you that he uses sending you to the horror that was the gulags as an incentive to make someone else do what he wants? If this happens on a regular basis, her bitterness comes as no surprise. Even if it's Belarus, that's just not right.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
    • Oh Italy. It doesn't matter how useless everyone thinks he is, there are still quite a few countries in this show that want to occupy his vital regions. As for the fanbase, the fans seem to have a tendency to convert their homelands into little black dresses. America and Japan get around a lot. England, too, mostly because he's a very popular character.
    • Even the fanbase seems to think that everyone will be one with Russia...
    • France too, fittingly.
    • Japan. How many nations is he paired up with in Fanon? Especially by Japanese fans? Even in the English-speaking fandom where he gets much less shipping attention than the Western countries do, it's probably telling that it can be hard at times to tell which ship is the most popular one for him with Japan/China, Japan/England, and Japan/Greece being within spitting distance of each other popularity-wise and several other Japan pairings having smaller but just as loyal followings.
    • England. He's one of the most popular characters in both the Japanese and English-speaking fandoms. He gets around. A lot. As evidence, his facebook fanlisting has the largest amount of fans out of any country in the series (over 10,000 fans and counting). He also came 2nd in a character popularity poll hosted on the official Japanese site of Hetalia's publisher Gentosha, losing out (perhaps inevitably) to Japan - here. And he actually came in 1st on an earlier character popularity poll, beating out even Japan.
  • LGBT Fanbase: Turkey has a uniquely bara-like appearance that makes him adored like woah among the gay/bisexual male fans, or at least the Japanese ones. On Pixiv, more R-18 pictures have been produced of him than France!
    • Grandpa Rome, for similar reasons.
    • Russia himself as well.
    • Germany. Also Netherlands.◊
    • Sweden and Denmark can get similar treatment, especially in R-18 content, but to a lesser extent than Turkey. On occasion the other Nordics will get this as well, excluding Iceland.
    • Australia as well, considering the amount of fanworks that give◊ him quite a lot of◊... beef.◊. Plus it kinda fits the stereotype too.
    • On the Les Yay side of the fandom, lesbian/bi/pan female fans tend to be quite fond of Hungary, Ukraine and Belgium.
  • Memetic Badass / Memetic Molester: Although it's his unrepentant badassness that makes him so popular, his fandom's memes are even scarier: 'Prussia will occupy/seize your vital regions' and 'Prussia is 5 METERS LONG!'. In fact, Prussia is said to run around 4chan trying to seize the vital regions of the various boards. He even took over the main site for an April Fool's event. It may be rubbing off onto the actual anime, he acts very scarily in the below strip in the anime.
  • Memetic Molester: "Everyone will become one with Russia", indeed.
  • Memetic Mutation: Has its own page.
    • Austria x His Piano OTP!, after episode 5 of the webcast.
    • "I'm damaged goods, Feliks!". Coming from a VERY bad fanfic where Lithuania was the weepy uke to Russia's Fetishized Abuser.
    • Canada, WHY SO MOE?
    • England's "Britannia Angel" outfit, in which he has magic powers, such as being able to turn other characters back into children. Also his Sexy Waiter outfit.
    • And thanks to the April Fools 2011 event, now there's his Nurse outfit, which has already become a big hit on Pixiv and is starting to appear quite a bit elsewhere.
    • Either of Turkey's three outfits: the Ottoman times one, the modern military uniform he wears now or the green hoodie he often wears.
  • Mind Game Ship: Whenever someone ships Russia with anyone else, the fic usually turns out like this.
    • When Belarus isn't paired with Russia or Lithuania, she's paired up with... America.
    • Many other Foe Yay Shipping pairings, such as Denmark/Sweden, Japan/China and Turkey/Greece, are very often portrayed as this.
  • Moe: Finland, Latvia, Taiwan, fem!Japan, Liechtenstein, Iceland ever since the 2010 Christmas event, and Canada (WHY SO MOE?).
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • Belarus busting through Russia's door to demand that they get married married married married married... with a close up on her crazy expression.
    • The best example would be the "Bloody Sunday" strip, in which Russia finally snaps and starts GUNNING DOWN his own people as they're rioting in the streets ("If they hate me, they're not Russian.") before turning to Lithuania and stating "We don't want children who can't play nice, do we?".
    • The opening scene of The Movie. Romania gives this vibe in some fanworks drawings◊.
      • The final fight in the movie, as well. Throughout the movie, the nations being assimilated was treated as quick, random, and comical. In the last fight, it's down to the handful of remaining characters to fight to survive, as they're overrun by aliens. They get picked off one by one, scared and screaming for each other. Unlike previous conversions, they transform slowly and call out in terror the entire time. And when they are assimilated, they still look kind of like their human selves, remain frozen, and have the aliens just walk around them creepily.
    • England's creepy Black Magic and anything related to it.
  • Not Badass Enough for Fans:
    • Some fans have ragged on China for his "girly looks" and "girly voice". Even though the guy has fricking super strength and martial skills in the anime. Apparently being able to disarm and overpower two very skilled opponents (who are wielding a katana and a gun) with nothing but a WOK isn't at all impressive... just because of the aforementioned feminine appearance and voice.
    • Poland's Keet behavior and penchant for ponies and skirts makes him hated in some circles.
    • Austria haters (or more specifically, the die-hard Prussia/Hungary and/or Romania/Hungary supporters) frequently exaggerate his Non-Action Guy traits in order to make him unsuitable for the Lady of War Hungary and thus leave her free to go off with the much more battle-oriented Prussia or Romania.
    • Some fans have a tendency to turn Canada into a Memetic Badass and Deadpan Snarker instead of the fairly nice, unassertive guy he is in canon. It even goes to disturbing levels in fanworks where he becomes Cute and Psycho.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Seborga, acknowledging the part the Templar Knights played in his history.
    • Denmark is often seen doing this in fanon, as well. How else could he rule the Kalmar Union then?
  • Older Than They Think: Hetalia was not the first series to attempt to do anthropomorphic depictions of nations. It just happens to be the most popular.
  • One True Threesome: Many fans ship Austria/Hungary/Prussia, which is sometimes called "The Frying Pangle". A lot of other threesomes can be found listed under its example in the trope article.
  • Periphery Demographic: One of the biggest foundations of Hetalia: Axis Powers is the Ho Yay, which the more history-based fans often find... disturbing. However, there's a sort-of agreement between both groups in regards to the heterosexual Official Couple formed by Austria and Hungary: it's just So. Damn. CUTE!. Plus, if you're sad your country never appears in foreign news outside of the tragic, prepare for the lighter side...
  • Portmanteau Couple Name: Ro-Ber-To (In Italy, 'Axis' meant just Rome and Berlin specifically.)
    • The Japanese fandom has Joker for America x England (Alfred F. Jones x Arthur Kirkland.) The reverse is 過剰 (pronounced ka-jo). In the west, USUK (or UKUS, depending on the seme-uke dynamic) is much more common.
    • There are actually a lot of these for various pairings (let's play the "how many pairing names can you decipher?" game!): AmeBela, AmeCan, Ameripan, AusHun, DenNor, DenSu or DeSu, Franada, FraSey, FrUK, GerIta or Gertalia, Giripan, KoHo, LietPol or PoLiet, NiChu, NorIce, PruAus, PruCan, PruHun, RoChu, RusAme, RusLiet, Spamano, SuFin...
    • Kimichibowl (S.Korea/China), Kimichiburger(S.Korea/America), Edelweiss (Austria/Switzerland)...
  • Recurring Fanon Character:
    • As there can be personifications of every country in existence, there are many fanmade nations that are popular in the fandom. Some popular examples are Mexico, Brazil, Israel, and even the Confederate States of America.
    • Fans have created a lot of "2p!" characters, or Darker and Edgier versions of the countries that represent more negative stereotypes. The original 2p!s were created by Hidekaz Himaruya and have official designs, but fans have created many 2p! versions of countries that did not receive any. One of the most popular is 2p! Canada, who has longer hair than his original counterpart and a stubble. He usually wears flannel and sunglasses or a Mountie uniform. He is a gruff and manly outdoorsman.
  • Ron the Death Eater: Oh, boy. Now with its own page.
    • America may have his jerkish moments in canon, but some people make him out to be an absolute and irredeemable Jerkass, especially when they want to make Canada look better or justify England hooking up with someone else.
      • Or a Psychopathic Manchild who treats Japan horribly during/after WWII. Sometimes this is done to send Japan running off into the arms of someone else, but other times it seems that the fan authors truly believe that America would actually act like that towards Japan. While Japan initially resented America, he eventually warmed up to him during Westernization and is clearly good friends with him in the post-WWII strips. You would think that would signify that the events at the end of WWII are far from the be-all end-all of their overall relationship, right? Apparently not.
    • England tends to be hit with this trope. Whether it's because he's in the way of the author's preferred pairing, the author wants to woobiefy a character connected to him, they want to make him more "historically accurate" or, it seems, simply because he's British, if a fanfic has an evil/depraved bastard and it's not Russia, chances are it's him.
    • The infamous "Nazi Prussia" fanwork trend, in which Darker and Edgier fanworks make him an insane Nazi who beats/rapes/betrays/abuses/etc. his fellow nations - specially Germany, Austria or Hungary.
      • Either that, or he's shown as The Fool and Jerkass whom everyone hates and/or abuses.
    • Some people overexaggerate Belarus's bad traits to make Lithuania look more woobie-ish than he truly is or to discourage the Russia/Belarus pairing.
    • Russia himself also gets this treatment in several fanfics where he' given the role of the story's antagonist. It's mainly due to the fact that fanwriters, regardless of their own opinions on his character, just find it a little too easy to crank up certain characteristics of his personality (namely that he is a Psychopathic Manchild, a Stepford Smiler, and The Fake Cutie, plus Real Life Soviet Russia's own atrocities such as The Gulag were no laughing matter).
    • Turkey might not have the most agreeable of personalities or the best of relations with Greece or Hungary, but some fanworks turn him into a complete asshole who will smirkingly manipulate, abuse, and rape others solely to "put them in their place", whether because these fanwriters love The Masochism Tango of Turkey/Greece or Turkey/Hungary or are enamored of the idea of Turkey as a Fetishized Abuser with a White Mask of Doom.
    • Scotland hasn't even been in the anime yet, but it doesn't stop some fans from making him a Big Brother Bully or downright abusive (usually to England, but Wales, Ireland and other countries get their share of it, too).

    S-W 
  • The Scrappy: While not as open as in Korea's case, you can bet that in a poll about disliked characters, Sealand will have a "top" spot.
    • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Fans generally started liking him more mainly because he seems to be the only nation that was able to defend himself against the mysterious figure and question him with no problems, even striking an Intergenerational Friendship. In fact, a lot of memes concerning him exploded because of said incident.
    • Due to being a micronation and not a real country, as well as some fans not liking her bratty personality, Wy's debut quickly earned her this position along with some accusations of being part of a Spotlight-Stealing Squad.
    • No discussion of The Scrappy would be complete without Korea, who was raked over the coals by fans disgruntled about the Korean Moral Guardians forcing the cancellation of the Hetalia anime's TV broadcast. Fortunately, this seems to have all but died down with the passage of time; nowadays it's a lot more common for fans to lament that Korea isn't in the anime instead.
    • Or Japan, who was hated by people who called him a Misplaced Nationalism-fueled character that was ruining the anime after every episode he appeared in. Or took personal offense about him being as beloved in Japanese fandom as Canada was in Western fandom. Or claimed that him not being depicted as a monster or his Imperial Japan atrocities not being portrayed in graphic detail in a series focused on the lighthearted side of history meant that Himaruya was "trivializing" history. It was mainly limited to a Vocal Minority, but they kept on finding the stupidest reasons to bash him; there was even a post on the Hetalia comm that bashed Japan as a "shojo harem manga heroine" to promote Turkey/Poland. Fortunately, like with Korea, the hate has quieted down over time, probably because Japan having a minor or supporting role at best in the comics means that the Vocal Minority can't call him a Spotlight-Stealing Squad by any stretch of the imagination.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: In the end, not even this fandom proved to be immune to this. See main entry for details. And we're not talking about their navies. (It reaches the point where one of the very first reactions to a new character's appearance is people using him against another pairing.)
  • Testosterone Brigade:While the Yaoi Fangirl is a common stereotype of the fandom, there are male fans who are attracted to either the history, characterizations, or the female Nations. Ukraine, Belarus, Hungary and Taiwan are rather popular among the rare fanboys. This is somehow ironic considering the series was originally intended for adult men.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Many fans' opinion on the alterations to the English dub script. See Broken Base above. For some fans, it's not the script but the voices that make the dub this trope.
  • This Is Your Premise on Drugs: Take a world history or poli-sci class. Now, replace the teacher with a rabid Yaoi Fangirl who also happens to be The Alcoholic. That about sums up the series.
  • Ukefication:
    • Lithuania often gets written as such by fans, downgraded from Nice Guy to Extreme Doormat. Fanfic frequently does this to Poland as well, due to his crossdressing tendencies. Or, in other words, when Liet isn't made into an uke fragile flower, it's because Poland has fallen victim to it instead.
    • Poor Finland may be the biggest victim of this in the APH fandom, after England and Lithuania. Although thankfully a good amount of the fandom prefers to write him as badass, or take a third option and make him a Cute Bruiser who's mostly nice, but unafraid of facing people when he's upset or his friends are threatened.
  • Unpopular Popular Character: Canada. And taking into account the fact that everyone keeps picking on England and hates Russia, they can also be called this. Prussia is this as well, considering that he's currently a Butt-Monkey even his younger brother's ashamed of and that he's got a terrible record in his love life and friendships.
  • Values Dissonance: The anime was originally going to air on a Kids Channel in Japan. In America? It's aimed at adults.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Hong Kong has been confirmed as male, but some fans are still confused. As for China, the author himself lampshades this trope in regards to him by listing him as the only female Allied member on the official character chart... before adding a "Not" on the end.
    • The above could have been mocked in the Bloodbath 2010 when after being abducted by the mysterious figure both, China and Hong Kong, awake just to find themselves randomly in crossdressing clothes.
    • The audience isn't involved and is instead switched with HRE (and a few other countries at the time, until Italy grew up). Mainly, HRE always thought that Chibitalia was a girl.
    • New Zealand. Though now confirmed to be male, there was a lot of back-and-forth speculation when the character design first came out.
  • Wangst: "Einsamkeit (Loneliness)". From the few lyrics we know, it's played for laughs.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Many non-fans and a few fans have mistaken Hetalia for something meant to educate children, especially the anime. Partially because the anime was supposed to air on a channel called "Kids' Station" (protests got it pulled from TV and made into a webcast.) However, this isn't a sure thing as Kids' Station plays anime for an older audience later in the day, similar to what Cartoon Network does.
  • Woolseyism: The dub constantly swings between this and Gag Dub.
    • Its woolseyisms are popular enough that scanlations seem to take inspiration from it, such as adapting America's wording to be somewhat looser than earlier translations (which were already casual), therefore resembling his Totally Radical speech pattern in the dub (uses of "Dude," "Respect," etc).
    • In the original Japanese version of Japan presenting Germany his idea for the naval fleet, Germany's response to each item is "What the!?" In the English version, this is changed so that each idea is given a different response, "Cool!" "No vay!" "This is wunderbar, Japan!"

Alternative Title(s): Axis Powers Hetalia

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