Trivia / Hetalia: Axis Powers

• Acting for Two:
  • Daisuke Namikawa voices both Italies. Meanwhile, Aki Kanada voices both of their younger selves.
  • America and Canada are both voiced by Katsuyuki Konishi in Japanese and Eric Vale in English.
  • China and Taiwan are both voiced by Yuki Kaida in China's drama track and in the anime, as well as both being voiced by Clarine Harp in the dub.
• Actor-Shared Background: France's English voice actor is a fluent French speaker.
• Banned in China: The series is banned in South Korea for the character of, well, Korea being a copycat desperately trying to rip off Japan's entire culture and way of life, despite Korea not appearing in the anime.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!:
  • Contrary to what fanon says, the infamous "vital regions" memetic line was never used by either Prussia or Russia. Austria first used it in the "Maria Theresa" series. Spain also used it in Spain's Lazy Morning", and Lithuania in Checkmating Poland.
  • And America never called England "Iggy." Nor "Dad" for that matter (see Big Brother Mentor).
  • Russia never referred to himself as "Mother Russia."
  • The "five meters" meme is entirely fanon, and has never been used anywhere in the series ever.
• Bonus Material:
  • The first edition versions of volumes four and five of the Japanese manga had special booklets.
  • The Japanese DVDs come with CDs containing audio dramas and character songs.
  • The first run of the DVDs in North America came with Hetalia-themed bandanas.
• Creator Backlash: Himaruya has deleted some strips and illustrations for the series over the years, probably for Unfortunate Implications and mistakes that he later corrected.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Averted and disproved for Iceland. A popular and old rumor was that he would be voiced by Mitsuki Saiga, while fans often assumed that a female would eventually voice him anyway. His voice actor for The Movie wound up being a relatively unknown male one, Ayumu Asakura.
  • Avoided for Hong Kong. Lots of fans speculated about which female seiyuu would play him, but both the CD drama and the Special Episode of the anime gave him a male one: Motoki Takagi.
• Distanced from Current Events: Due to the obvious Real Life issues, Tibet just appeared in a single strip. In the webcast adaptation of said strip, he was replaced by a talking panda.
• Fandom Life Cycle: Fell into 6-C in the west, to the point where even bringing it up has people cringing or commenting that it has an effect akin to a sleeper agent. While it obviously still has its fans, it’s looked back on far too negatively by most to land in 6-B.
• God Never Said That: The series' fandom has numerous instances of this, often as a result of fans mistranslating or misinterpreting the source material and Word of God:
  • The most infamous examples are Sweden's "grunting speech" (in canon he speaks with a Tohoku accent which was mistranslated and consequently bowdlerized by the fandom into grunting and mumbling), and America's Idiot Hero behavior being a case of Obfuscating Stupidity (what Word of God actually said was that America could read the atmosphere, but he just doesn't care).
  • There was also the claim that the to-be-created fifth season of Hetalia would make certain pairings, like US/UK, canon. Nothing was said by Word of God on this, and it was apparently just started up by fans.
• No Export for You: While the team Hetascanlations has been making unofficial scanlations for years, and it's even gotten official releases in Germany, China and Thailand, the manga publications of World Stars have yet to see an English release.
• The Other Darrin: In the case of Romano's younger self, initially voiced by his older self's actor in the first episode, then switched in episode 60.
  • In World Twinkle, Taliesin Jaffe took over voicing England for a very good reason, as Scott Freeman was convicted for child pornography. Jaffe himself was replaced by Steven Kelly in World Stars, presumably due to being busy with Critical Role.
  • Due to Cassandra Hodges' tragic death via suicide, her role as Seychelles in The Beautiful World was recast, with Caitlin Glass taking over.
  • Denmark's voice actor was changed from Montgomery Sutton in World Series to Greg Ayres from The Beautiful World onward, as there were production delays.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Hiroki Takahashi, who normally plays Hot-Blooded, Jerkass characters, voices Japan.
  • Fangirl-magnet Vic Mignogna voices... a sleepy, silent, bored Greece. Who has less lines in seasons 1 and 2 than Canada!
  • Eric Vale as sweet, quiet Canada as well.
  • Liechtenstein's seiyuu is much better known for voicing Tsunderes.
  • Belarus's seiyuu Urara Takano, who more often than not plays cute boys or Onee-sama types.
    • Contrast with Monica Rial, who is very much in her element. That said, those parts were a departure for her at the time, so she's growing into a new "type" here.
• Reclusive Artist: A curious example for Wy. While she is indeed an artist and also really hard to reach that's actually because they can't build a driveway.
  • Kugelmugel also counts.
  • Ladonia's founding boss created the driftwood sculptures in his claimed land.
• Referenced by...: Not the intended use (Zantetsuken Reverse): Chapter 22's author's notes:
  Matthew's cousin Madeline is a reference to Hetalia, where Canada is named Matthew Williams, and his female name would be Madeline.
• Shrug of God: About a lot of things ranging from how the nations are born, what exactly happens to the personifications where their nation no longer exists, to if/when certain nations will appear in the series.
• Star-Making Role: Particularly in the dub, where it helped to kickstart or bolster several VAs' careers.
• What Could Have Been: Many of the characters were originally quite different than how they were eventually portrayed.
  • Italy wasn't originally intended to have his Idiot Hair, but Himaruya drew it in at the last minute to make him appear cuter. His personality was also originally to be similar to a character from Himaruya's first series, Advance! Kitakou Broadcasting Club in being simply unlucky and cowardly, not being that much of a ditz.
  • Early notes in a booklet included with the special edition of volume 3 revealed that Germany was to be more of a "scary" character and moodier, but became more of a sympathetic type as the story evolved.
  • According to volume 3, China was going to be middle-aged and have short hair and glasses, and be more like Austria in personality.
  • According to volume 3, America was supposed to have been more handsome, more cheeky, and smarter. Himaruya has stated that the original version would not have worked out that well.
  • Himaruya originally considered giving England normal thin eyebrows, as well as making him an older man who attempted to dress trendy and younger. He changed his mind on the eyebrows after deciding he wanted them to mimic the brow patterns of a Shiba dog.
  • France was originally planned as a straight stereotype of a completely suave character, and he would have had visible wrinkles and shorter hair. Like America, he actually appeared in the strips with some of those physical characteristics before the Art Evolution hit.
  • According to volume 3, Russia was originally had dark hair, was middle-aged, and was going to be a crybaby whose personality changed completely when he got drunk.
  • Along with the idea for Hungary as a man, Himaruya had another idea for her personality, with her being a snide and witchy type of woman who would shoot people full of arrows if they mistook her for a guy. The basis of her current design and this rejected personality were in turn recycled from a Hungarian witch character in a series that never materialized.
  • Prussia was initially to have long hair and facial characteristics more like Poland, as well as being more mature.
  • Himaruya had one idea for Switzerland to actually be a woman who dressed masculine when in uniform, but who would wind up shocking others like Germany when they would see her in plain clothing.
    • A recent blog entry (October 2011) states that he would have originally been a girl with pigtails until Hima apparently saw a Swiss guy out shopping with a gun.
  • At first Himaruya considered having Liechtenstein emulate her brother even more, with a harsher personality and a cold manner of speech.
  • According to volume 3, originally Greece had glasses and shorter hair.
  • Poland was initially intended to be the first female, while Hungary was to be male.
  • According to this blog entry, Belarus originally was supposed to be a brunette and quite more mellow and stable. A remnant of this idea can be seen in her first colored manga appearance, where her facial expression when threatening Latvia is a little less severe, while her hair and eyes are both colored brown.
    • Volume 3 notes also revealed that Himaruya played around with the idea of a Tsundere Belarus who was hot-tempered and constantly nagging.
    • Another instance of an early and cuter Belarus design can be seen in a School Days -parodying doodle by Himaruya, entitled "Soviet Days"◊.
  • Ukraine was to originally have a more average-sized chest, but in contrast, her personality would have been less dignified and she was to be even more unlucky.
  • Cuba was initially set to be a cute boy who was kinder, yet still strong-willed.
  • A prototype design for Korea had the character as a girl◊ with aspirations to be a pop idol. The design for the female Korea was inspired by the lead of an earlier, short-lived webcomic by Himaruya, entitled MoeKan (and even directly resembled her in one of the drafts). It was also re-used for his canon Gender Flip self.
    • He was also supposed to be in the anime, but then the South Korean government, Moral Guardians declared a Dude, Not Funny! on the character ^note While both Kids' Station and Studio Deen denied there ever was to be a Korea character in the anime, he did appear in the first ending sequence and in a character design on the website (that was removed shortly after the controversy), as well as an animation error in episode 14 (when they removed his role from the plot, but forgot to do a retake on one scene that showed him from behind). Fans can still dream though since Himaruya did not dispose of him, at least in his blog, as of 2010-11.
    • Himaruya himself seems to have taken a third option: Korea's out of official merchandise and media, but he keeps drawing him on a regular basis in his blog and website since he can do whatever he wants there. He still gets strips of his own, and also appears in Hetaween 2011 and Hetalia Bloodbath 2011.
  • Himaruya had many preliminary designs of Taiwan◊, including: a little girl, an old man, a Dragon Lady, a short-haired tomboy, a little boy and a young man.
  • According to Word of God, Seychelles was based off of an old character who was meant to represent Nagasaki.
    • As well, an initial design shows Seychelles with one very bushy eyebrow and one normal one. This sketch also has her trademark ribbons missing.
  • There's a discarded sketch of Luxembourg showing his face that also appear in Belgium's nightmares◊ (while the real Luxembourg is hiding behind the door):
  Belgium: Ugh~ Who's this guy... this isn't the Luxem I know.
  • Nagasaki originally had ribbons in her hair and looked more like Seychelles (who in fact was based from that old design).
  • Okinawa was originally to be a girl with flowers in her hair, as shown in a discarded sketch in one of Himaruya's galleries. She was also an Expy of Tira Sugusuku, a character existing in both the Barjona and Kitakou series. However, a girl resembling the original design (or Tira) can be seen at his house in his debut.
  • In the dub, Todd Haberkorn was originally cast as Britain, but the role of Italy ended up having to be recast.
  • Apparently, the recasting of Italy ended up delaying the dub for a while because they couldn't decide between Todd Haberkorn and Vic Mignogna.
  • Also with regards to the dub, Montgomery Sutton may have voiced Denmark throughout season five at the least; however, production delays meant recasting Denmark, with Greg Ayres taking the helm from seasons five on.
  • Early drafts for Malaysia as seen on Twitter reveal that he was originally going to have a similar hairstyle to Singapore.

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