The Blog™

Not going to lie, I did consider not writing this post. BUT it is the last post of the semester; so, to end on a strong note, I am currently writing it.

I watched one episode of Assassination Classroom a while back but found it ridiculous. Needless to say, I did not watch any further. However, after being required to watch past episode 1, I found the series to be quite interesting and will most likely watch the rest of the episodes after our final.

Addressing Global Issues/ Relating It Back To My Own Experience

The Top 1% of Earners… and the Rest

Like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Assassination Classroom depicts a class divide. Interestingly, however, the school is an elite school. Students in Class E, who are the focus of the anime, are nicknamed the “End” class, because of their “poor” academic performance relative to the rest of their classmates that attend the school. The school encourages the ridiculing of Class E students. In fact, many of the administrators participate in this ridicule with the justification that it will instill a sense of fear in the other students to not want to end up like Class E that, then, fuels their motivation to increase their academic performance and chances to a high-rank career. The situation depicted is eerily similar to the world we live in today with the ever-growing wealth gap in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. According to a recent article by CNN, the world’s top 1% of the wealthiest residents have “captured nearly twice as much wealth as the rest of the world” over the past two years (Luhby, 2023). That is, the top 1% have seen their net worth rise by $26 trillion, while the rest of us in the bottom 99% have only seen our net worth rise by a mere $16 trillion. Therefore, by making Class E the focus of the show with them being tasked to save the entire world from getting destroyed by assassinating Koro-sensei can be seen as a call to arms for those at the bottom of the social ladder to fight against the systems that dissuade them from rising.

***Additionally, Koro-sensei’s name (Korosen - can’t kill; Sensei - teacher) can be viewed as an acknowledgement to the systems of inequalities that cannot be killed. However, the show seemingly argues that individuals can learn to fight against those systems in hopes of changing the expected narrative written of them by society at-large. 

★★★☆☆

Perhaps it's optimistic, but I doubt we'll reach a point similar to that of Night City's. The show's depiction of a dystopian future is meant to be a warning against the potential consequences of unchecked capitalism and advanced technology. So many things appear to be beyond the control of the characters... I want to believe we have a little bit more agency than that.

Review: 7.8/10

This was a very interesting watch. I guess I can check off watching a rated R movie for school. The thing about this show besides being very intense, is that all that happened is actually true. Things that happen in this show can and may have happened to many people in the film industry and Hollywood. A lot can be talked about with this show.

First off, the biggest theme that stuck out to me was identity disorder. We first see that Mima is a pop star singer that wears cute dresses. She knows what her job is and what happens outside her job. The rest of the movie Mima changes her job and enters the acting world which is seen by her agents as the "next big thing" for her. In this new world she experiences a lot of new things. I feel like she was questioning whether she should leave the pop star singer role being torn between her old career that she loved and this new acting career. She is also struggling with all the new stuff in the acting world. I think the role to play a rape victim in the show just added to all the stuff she was going through mentally. I think as an actress you need boundaries and going into a role like that right away is just terrible especially if you don't know what the scene entails and if the film makers and other actors have the best intentions for you in general.

I was talking with my friend who knows someone that got sexually abused and it has the victims thinking less of themselves, nicely put. It is much more worse than my words as we saw in the movie. Now going forward, Mima begins to loose touch of reality. The movie begins to cut scenes and transition from dream to reality so much that when you thought it was reality it was a dream and vice versa until you're confused yourself. I think they did this to have the viewer experience what Mima was going through and what people who go through the same things experiences. If this is really the case this movie deserves a higher rating. I do not know the full story but apparently Heath Ledger experienced something like this with his role as the Joker in Batman. He was one of the best if not the best actor to play Joker but he couldn't separate his role as the joker from his own personal life. From what I heard this ultimately lead to his death.

The stalker was super creepy and the fact that her agent tried to kill her at the end and killed others I am assuming was a shocker. I guess she was never on board with Mima's decisions in acting. But to go and kill people around her and someone she was close with. I can't imagine the things Mima was going through.

Can someone please explain the hospital scene and the last scene. I was so confused when it ended like that. Why was she all smiley and happy? Is she good now or what? I would also like to add that there were so many dudes in the audience as a pop singer which kind of concerned me straight from the start. I was on board with her acting if her fan base as a singer is mostly guys. It was a little sus.

I think the scene in the hospital room is a representation of Mima's mind trying to reconcile her experiences with reality, as she struggles to come to terms with what has happened. But... she is still grappling with her sense of identity, and the ambiguity of the scene is meant to leave open the possibility that she may never fully recover from the trauma she experienced.

Yea I don't know if this is the best way to get introduced into manga with this series. I am confused on what was happening in what we read. I guess the story was on Japanese history and kind of looking at it from a far right view as the professor mentioned in class. From what I recall, the manga seemed to start out at the main dudes office and there was a problem happening and then it transitioned into how this problem is similar to history of Japan.

Again I was a little lost but kind of understood what was happening with testimonies. I guess in the political world I lean more toward the right. My mom has mixed views but my father is pretty far right minded and so using his mindset I kind of understood things near the end. What I got from the manga was that a testimony for something happening could be considered helpful or also invalid. There was also mention of late testimonies after a matter had ended which is something that has come up in our society recently.

Adding to the last statement, it is kind of frustrating that every time someone enters office people have to bring up their history and things they have done in the past that ruin their reputation. Both Trump and Biden have some pretty bad stuff on them that people have brought up on the news.

I do think that this rape stuff from the war is a much serious topic and I think their testimonies are all valid since everyone knows that comfort girls were a real thing happening. I guess I am confused on what exactly you can do then to raise awareness for the situation and have it never happen again. I understand the far right view that it mentioned that, the comfort girls thing was "something of that era". On one hand, there is nothing we can do to change the past but on the other, we can raise awareness and not let it happen or make sure in the future it is to be punished for. I know now, more people would stand against those actions.

I do see the value in evaluating both of these generally insensitive works and seeing what makes one better received than the other. Hetalia is one big joke and Sensōron takes itself seriously. What's worse?

Makoto Shinkai films are simply beautiful. Having seen this film several years ago, I’m still in awe at how crisp and nice the animations and scenes are. The music from Radwimps is amazing and this film holds up pretty well in my heart today.

Much of the film can be taken in through the scenery. I think that Makoto does a great job of showcasing this through its insane attention to detail and brief pauses that are light but powerful. This combined with very noticeable symbolism in the bracelet ties and the infinity sign of the lake, creates some pretty interesting motifs. The red strings seem to draw a parallel to human relationships in how they “twist, tangle, sometimes unravel and break, and then connect again”. The infinity symbol of the lake also seems to touch on a sense of unchangingness and eternity. 

Above all, I feel that Your Name excels at presenting the idea of love and empathy. Being that Mitsuha and Taki live completely different lives in different environments, it forces them to be aware of each other’s presence when they switch. Through chaotic messes and shenanigans, they both become understanding and grateful for the other person. And towards the end with a powerful finish, Makoto takes great note of that and presents a great portrayal of what it means to love someone. It can make an individual feel so powerful and capable of doing anything. The way it can push someone like Taki to try so hard to find Mitsuha or cause tears for Mitsuha in setting up Taki on a date, feels so well done.

Additionally, when Hodaka and Hina are working for Miss Tachibana, her grandson (Taki) shows up! The novel further builds on this, saying that there are pictures of Miss Tachibana's grandson's wedding.

I cannot rate this with a good conscience ❤

I have autism and Hetalia is my special interest so this is literally 3k words long and I have absolutely no regrets. I could have gone on longer but I wanted to remain relevant to the class. If you don't reply to me I will cry.

I'm gonna break this into a few sections so you can skip around. I'm going to try and stick to just season 1 with this discussion, which won't be too hard cause it's the most insane one. Also, I just want to say that I wrote this all before I read the attached article and I'm now seeing that I literally could have written that article because I know everything about Hetalia.

When do we cross the line between stereotyping and just straight-up racism?

Hey, why are we idolizing WWII Germany?

Oh, we are portraying war as silly and funny, okay cool.

Is this Japanese Nationalism? (a surprisingly controversial argument)

The Sub and the Dub are 2 totally different shows

The Fandom (and linking back to other class-related terms)

Okay I'll name one good thing

Alright, let's get started.

1.

A lot of people will argue that Hetalia is not racist at all because they are making fun of everyone. If you are portraying all of the countries as their most common stereotypes then it evens out in the end. I would argue that this is in fact, not the case. Especially when you set your show during WWII. I will give Himaruya credit in that he mostly focuses on European countries to make fun of, making a lot of the stereotypes less so targeted at minorities. However, a lot of these jokes are still highly insensitive and frame some countries in a worse light than others

Just look at the difference between how Northern Italy is portrayed as opposed to Germany or Japan. Or how France is a predator, Belarus is into her literal brother, and Spain is seen as a creep. It is often times mocking an entire country's intelligence, appearance, or personality. While it is not always that serious, it does lead me to the second point.

When you personify a country and mock it, you aren't just mocking a piece of land, you are mocking an entire population of people. These jokes may seem harmless but they can still be hurtful. While I don't believe that liking Hetalia translates to your actual views on world events, it can unconsciously impact your real-life thoughts and behaviors.

(also why does Britain see imaginary magical creatures, what is that referencing? According to the wiki, it is some popular folklore story of a rabbit who lives on the moon but like.. what? If Himaruya was doing this much research into these countries' cultural backgrounds why is he portraying them like this?)

2.

This show portrays WWII Germany in too positive of a light for my liking. I've noticed a trend in anime where they seem to love Germany (or Germanic aesthetics) a lot (AOT I'm looking at you). Now I'm not well-versed in the interpersonal relationships between Japan and Germany, but the idolization is not it. The way that Japan in this show is portrayed as being literally obsessed with Germany is the biggest example (Italy is also shown having an immense appreciation for Germany and is often gushing about his positive qualities, even writing him a song while he was being kept prisoner). But I mean look at how Germany is portrayed, even his stereotypes are mostly positive, he is hardworking but helps out his fellow allies, makes great food, and is super strong. His only negative trait is that he sometimes doesn't understand social scenarios and that makes him very awkward. However, he will always go out of his way to try and better understand his friends (like Italy) by purchasing books to try and help him learn the appropriate way to act in scenarios).

This is 10x worse in the dub but we will get there. When one of your main characters, the one you are portraying in the best light, is a literal war criminal hot anime boy, you can understand why I would be concerned. I mean they gave him the whole blonde hair blue eyed appearance like come on. Now I'm not going to go into depth on fandom or anything here but Hetalia knows that its demographic is young tweens (primarily girls) so how can you be surprised when this portrayal of Germany leads to WWII fanfics sympathizing with Germany and 14 y/o girls in German military uniforms doing questionable things. (also Germany becomes a canonically gay character in Hetalia in like season 4 or something and that just makes me so mad, like yeah, of course, the gay character is WWII Germany that so cool) (okay, I would like to clarify that technically Sweden is the only confirmed gay character. Sweden is bad representation though because he has one-sided feelings for Finland and makes him uncomfortable by constantly referring to him as his wife)

3.

I mean yeah, obviously this isn't going to be an accurate portrayal of history but some of this is just totally misinformation.

Austria invading Germany is literally just Austria annoying him in his house for a really long time. But also there's like actual wars... and like all of the events of WWI are canon... and like there are some really serious episodes

Also, we literally see a bunch of countries going to war personally, like fighting on the frontlines. Which to me confirms that these people are all literal murderers, like mass murderers lowkey.

Do you know how many weird USSR jokes there are throughout this? So many. Lithuania is pretty much just in a running gag where he keeps getting manipulated by Russia into coming back to live with him. (Yeah, there are so many USSR fics as well).

ALSO! why is the American revolution portrayed as the saddest thing to happen thus far, the storyline is stretched out from episodes 16-20 and it is all drastically different from the tone of the rest of the show. Britain is literally on his knees crying saying that he can't shoot America (which also implies these countries can physically harm/kill each other). Like that is the war you wanted to make all sad and sentimental? Why? Is this how Japanese people think that we view the Revolutionary war? Because that is a pretty inaccurate view.

Anyways back to the original point. Some historical events should not be played for laughs sometimes. It is incredibly disrespectful for actual victims of these tragedies to portray these events as funny or goofy.

Though I will give credit because Himaruya does make all sides of the war look like idiots who have no clue what they are doing, which is a sentiment I can get behind.

4.

As a both non-Japanese and non-Korean person I can not really give my opinion on this however I can share with you both sides of the argument. This is mostly in relation to the original comic strip, but has some relevance to the anime as well. I just wanted to bring it up because it is interesting to me. (This is briefly mentioned in the article but I wanted to expand on the argument).

You may or may not have noticed that there is no South Korea character in this show, however, there was in the original comic. In the comics, South Korea is a pervert who is constantly touching Japan and he also takes credit for the inventions of other countries. Now I'm obviously not going to go into the past history of these 2 countries because that would be incredibly long but the South Korean National Assembly reviewed Hetalia and determined that it was a "crime against South Koreans, akin to slander". So yeah, South Korean people were not happy with this portrayal and the character was inevitably removed from the anime before release. (This is a real picture of the South Korean National Assembly reviewed Hetalia, the corner shows South Korea groping Japan inappropriately)

There are two opposing views to the Japanese Nationalism take and I'll link them both (Belittling Japanese Nationalism Hetalia: Axis Powers is the title of the first one)

The first one pretty much argues that Hetalis is not Japanese nationalism because it paints Japan in just as negative of a light as all of the other countries, no one is left out of being made fun of. Japan is seen as socially awkward, emotionally repressed, and obsequious.

The second argues that Japan is often shown to be more intelligent than other characters as well as often being of the voice of reason (especially compared to China) and most of his negative attributes are not nearly as harmful as some others in Japan’s case, even his “negative” stereotypes are inoffensive, as they pose no threat of meiwaku.

I think we see in the dub that Americans are a little more willing to make fun of themselves. Though there are a few good Japan self digs, like the capitalism joke in one of the first episodes.

5.

Oh boy I've been waiting for this.

The dub is 10x more offensive than the sub. Most people consider it a crack dub.

So many of the jokes are rewritten that it is practically a different show. The sub is from a Japanese perspective and the dub is from an American perspective.

First of all the accents in the dub are so bad like it is actually atrocious. Japan is really annoying because not only is his voice stereotypical but he always says 'nani?' instead of 'what?' as if that is a normal thing that people do. The narrator is the best part of the dub and she is hilarious.

So I don't really feel comfortable even typing out the jokes here so if you want to hear them I included the time stamps for the three nazi jokes I remember in season 1 (the last two being worse).

Episode 1 (1:35:1:38)

Episode 7 (2:13-2:19)

Episode 48 (1:28-1:31)

Those are just a few examples and it gets worse. The dub literally had no reason to include these jokes because there is not even an insinuation of them in the sub and it makes literally everything a million times worse.

I will give the dub some credit for being so utterly ridiculous that it's funny. I will provide a few timestamps for the funniest jokes that only appear in the dub from the first 19 episodes (but I really recommend looking up Hetalia dub funny moments on youtube because some of them are really priceless):

Episode 13: (1:45-2:05)

Episode 14: (1:12-1:22)

Episode 17: (0:59-1:15) (2:06-2:11)

6.

Now I've had this post typed up for a bit and originally I wasn't going to talk about the fandom but after reading the article that he assigned (and going through the fandom unit), I see that there is a lot of reference to fandom in particular so I want to at least mention it.

Not the 2 biggest problems with the Hetalia fandom are racism and the fetishization of gay men.

As mentioned in the article, there have actually been multiple fan incidents of them dressing up in WWII German military uniforms Germany/Prussia cosplay, and standing in front of temples with fake guns or doing nazi salutes in convention photos (If we want to bring racism and fetishization of gay men together there were two people who kissed in a holocaust memorial museum in Italy and Germany cosplay... there is no picture of this so it might be a rumor but it was well-known so it is worth mentioning). There were also a lot of people using imperialist Japan flags in cosplay/fanart and writing incredibly inappropriate fanfiction about real-life events.

If you would like to see any of these incidents feel free to look up "Hetalia the Boston Incident" I don't really wanna include the photos here.

The fetishization is not unique to the Hetalia fandom, but it is amplified to the max. Obviously, within Hetalia, there are almost no female characters, so this leaves only male characters to be shipped with one another. Now suddenly Germany is an uwu gay bean and not an actual war criminal. At the moment of writing this Hetalia has 32105 M/M fics on ao3 which is only one of the three fanfiction sites, with ao3 not even becoming popularized until after the peak of the Hetalia fandom. (the most popular ship being America/England who refer to each other as brothers in the show as England raised America, showing another problematic part of the fandom). I would argue that Hetalia has one of the gayest fandoms (My Hero Academia is giving it a run for its money though) and I agree with the article that it is inaccurate to say that this is only done by straight cis women. The fact of the matter is a lot of queer teens used Hetalia as an outlet to express their own sexuality through these characters. The straight women that do fetishize BL are likely only doing so because anime creators suck at writing good female characters.

I think that the "level of gayness" turns straight fans away from watching the show (again MHA is the same way today) as it is hard to interact with the fandom without seeing some yaoi content. However, many people view this as something wrong or cringy, when in reality it is a normal part of fandom culture. When gay people have such little content that is actually gay, you cannot blame us for creating our own through characters that we like/relate to. Again, I think the only issues that arise here are the problematic ships that give young people a bad impression of relationships (abusive, incest, pedophilia, etc) or the arguable problematic ones like China/Russia or Lithuania/Russia as again these are real countries with real political relations. (However, I will never forget the time that there was Russia/China fanart on the news, maybe they approve and I shouldn't be complaining)

The thing is, Hetalia only seems so bad because the fandom is so large and so young. A lot of shows have fandoms that sexualize the characters and have kinda problematic fans, but the sheer volume makes things seem worse. This is something that we covered when we watched Genshiken, but there is a lot of negative stigma behind this fandom in particular, but it is just a loud minority that gets a lot of news coverage between fandoms.

It also raises the question "Is a show responsible for the response of its fans?"

Because while Himaruya has no control over what people do with his characters or how they interpret a plot, if a majority of people are leaving your show spouting vaguely racist rhetoric and interpreting your show one way, isn't there some validity in that interpretation? I think a creator has to be aware of their audience, which in this case is a very young and impressionable audience who might not understand how offensive some of the things they are doing really are. They don't hold the same ability to separate fiction from reality.

That being said Hetalia had a large impact on fandom culture as a whole, largely starting things like 'ask a character' panels (along with like homestuck but we don't talk about her). If you go to any convention you will probably find a Hetalia cosplayer, and if you watch any dub there is probably a voice actor from Hetalia there.

I also want to mention Hetalia is also a fandom full of cultural capital, If you don't know every niche fact, you're not a real fan, If you haven't read Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart you haven't even met the entry-level requirements to be a fan. There are also no characters that are too sacred to be altered within the fandom. If you want to put Germany in a maid dress have at it, if you want to see all the characters as girls you're in luck cause Himaruya literally drew them. Fanfictions can take place anywhere from WWI to the present day and you can put any characters in any scenario and make it believable. There are thousands of pieces of fanwork, fan art, fangames, and fan AUs. These characters are malleable to fit your personal preference and there is really no way you could be mad at this as Himaruya does this himself, with no real established canon.

a Hetalia fan once said, "No one cares if Hetalia was written by a Japenese Imperialism apologist when you're 31 chapters deep into a human Au soulmate fic about Austria inviting Prussia to see his boyband perform in Berlin"

Himaruya is also the king of moe characteristics because he turned these Hetalia men into any cute thing he could think of, Chibi versions (Chibitalia), female versions (Nyotalia), and cat versions (Nekotalia). He has no reservations about drawing the characters in a dress or in cat ears. He gave the characters human names to allow for more standardized human AU's and made a DS dating game. He encourages fans to take his characters and use them in their fanworks as they see fit, canon is up to interpretation itself. I think Himaruya himself was a huge part of fandom culture (not that I could tell you cause no one knows anything about the guy) and saw how the female characters were often treated by fans and turned it on its head, allowing for females to sexualize the males this time.

Also, none of the male characters in this show resembles a Hegemonic form of masculinity. Even the most masculine character in the show (Germany) can be seen doing more "feminine things" like wearing a dress or proposing to a man. Which, you know, I guess is a good diversion from things you would typically see in an anime of this nature (but again there are a lot of instances of characters being feminine being played for laughs, like a man being girly is something inherently funny). Feat. Germany proposing to Italy with a tomato ring.

7.

I am Hetalia's biggest hater, however, I cannot deny the impact that it has had on my life and how much I love to talk about it. Hetalia is what introduced me to anime and fandom (and tumblr) for the first time. I met a lot of people I still talk to today because of this show. It encouraged me and a lot of other people to actually get interested in history. Thanks to this show I can identify every country in Europe, and it was a lot easier to remember historical facts if I just imagined the Hetalia characters. Also, Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart is a literary masterpiece and there is a reason it almost has a five-star rating on goodnotes (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/22064556) I love you George DeValier I hope you're doing good wherever you are.

I would like to make it abundantly clear that despite everything I've said that might make me sound like a woke blue-haired liberal, I don't really think this show is some horribly racist show or that the people who enjoy it are racist. I just wanted to provide a deeper outlook on the impact a seemingly dumb show can have on real people. I can't really blame the show for the terrible response of the fandom and it did honestly get better in later seasons that are not focused on WWII.

Despite all the bad stuff, it is a relatively funny little 5-minute watch, and you can really just jump in at any point you want to. If you don't take it as seriously as I do you might even enjoy it a little.

If you actually read this far I have major respect for you, I'm really excited to see what the general consensus on this show is.

Prussia and South Italy were my favorites in case anyone cared

If you're wondering why I didn't do my presentation on Hetalia despite my extensive knowledge, it is because I would be incredibly biased and I would go off the rails I think.

All of your criticism is valid, but my take is this: yes, the trivialization of serious historical events can be insensitive... but I gotta recognize attempts to promote cultural understanding and cross-cultural communication are being made. The information isn't entirely accurate, but that's kind of the point I guess. It'll inevitably spark conversation, making it a tool for social commentary and criticism.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is honestly such a good movie, and I'm honestly a little bit disappointed that all people ever talk about from Studio Ghibli are titles like Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, and so on. Personally, I found Nausicaa to be a lot more interesting than Spirited Away, although I will admit that this movie was probably able to delve deeper into certain things due to also being a longer film in general. Regardless, purely from an enjoyment standpoint, I really liked how the story was framed, Nausicaa's character, and the music choices throughout the movie.

With the movie taking place in a post-apocalyptic world where humans are barely able to safe place to sustain further life, Nausicaa comes across as commentary on pollution and taking the earth's gifts for granted, and to a lesser extent, the effects of war on people and nature. The main character Nausicaa understands that the earth is horribly polluted, which is why much of the earth cannot properly sustain life. This is also why she strives to find alternatives to senseless violence in regards to both the insects and humans, as seen by the way she prefers to calm down raging Ohms and lead them back to the forests instead of hurting them. For those who only see the Ohms and other insects as monsters who have no place in the world, they don't understand what the insects truly do for the environment, which is true even for ecosystems in real life. With increased habitat loss from urbanization and pollution, many animal species are driven to the brink of extinction, which throws off the balance of the ecosystem altogether.

 Addressing Global Issues/ Relating It Back To My Own Experience

 “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” – Matthew 6:10 NIV

Not going to lie, this was a bit difficult to sit through. I’m not that much of a fan of videogames, especially those like Xenoblade Chronicles 2; but, I did find the critique of environmental warfare quite interesting. Like Evangelion, there were, definitely, numerous biblical references. For the purposes of this post, however, I will be focusing on the Space Race.

To provide a brief historical overview, the Space Race was a 20th century competition between the world’s two greatest powers – the United States (democratic) and the Soviet Union (communist) – to prove their status as a sole superpower through achievement of superior spaceflight capability. This Cold War competition originated from the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations following WWII.