When it comes to Manchuria, his eyes and earrings are rather meaningful... I won't go into the earrings but the eyes are supposed to be symbolism: from two normal eyes, to losing one of his eyes when he's kicked from the throne, he wears a messy/bad quality eyepatch in the teens and twenties but he's gifted a nice quality eyepatch with the flag during the 30s by Japan, and then in modern day his eye has been healed but it's golden now, matching China's eyes. So there's a sort of symbolism there, with how it's healed him but also brought him closer to China, while during the occupation, he was given a nice expensive eyepatch but left injured anyways (even though presumably healing would have been possible). The feeling of duality for the occupation is important because it was at once brutal and luxurious, the horror was magnified by the sheer amount of money spent on the cities mainly occupied by the settler elite. I guess it’s significant because like, according to Hetalia canon, a nation’s physical wellbeing often mirrors their people/region’s wellbeing? so the eyepatch is like, so high quality and meant to communicate a finality to the loss of an eye, which covers up the reality that it’s totally heal-able. If Manchukuo was a functional thing at all and not an imperialist mask, his eye would be healed, but it’s not… while in modern day, it’s totally healed, but it’s also China’s eye rather than his own representing how he is now more than ever before part of China, totally and completely.
