Hetalia Axis Powers.
History stored into 5 minute episodes.
So racist and stereotypical, its awesome!
Countries of all kinds in there, maybe ones you haven't even heard of.
Storyline:
There isnt one. you dont need one for this.
well, there are side stories, such as Chibitalia, America's Storage Room Cleaning, and others I cant think of right now.
Storyline takes place somewhere in WWll, WWl, and other parts of time during wars, depending on the country.
Music:
in 5 minutes, you cant have too much music. but the music they have is fitting mostly. the ED sometimes changes from Italy to Russia, America, England, Japan,Germany, and France.
Italy even makes a song for Germany. and its stupid/funny.
Characters:
There are as many characters as there are countries.
all of them are stereotyped off of their country's stereotyped looks. (ex. Germany has slicked back blonde hair, white skin and blue eyes.)
and personalities are also stereotyped. (ex. America is a spazz and is an idiot, says awesome and dude a lot, and takes command and charge often.)
military power even effects how strong they are, and what they do. (America is awesomely strong(he can throw a bison with one hand!) and Italy only surrenders and flees from battle.)
sometimes depending on what time period it is, Japan Germany and Italy are only friends because of the Axis powers and same with China Russia America France and England are all friends because of the Allies. Other times Japan and England are America's only friends, France and England hate each other(mostly all the time.), and Russia lives alone, due to the fall of communism.
EVERYTHING IS STEREOTYPED.
Animation:
Its sometimes a different take.
in Chibitalia, it has a different style then the main show.
its very colorful, not a dull spot. well, all the time other than America's storage cleaning.
its a very fast-paced anime so a lot of things happen.
Demographic/ Fans:
For girls: HECK YES. Almost every character is a dude so expect a lot of girl fans. unfortunately this leads to fangirls goin' and pairing things....
For Dudes: Unfortunately the most (girl)fans ruin it, so dudes hate it.
if you ignore the fans then yes, if you cant then you'll hate it just like everyone on 4chan and 2chan.
There ARE girl characters, Like Belarus, Ukraine, Lichtenstein, and Hungary. There are a few others too.
Dubs/ Subs:
Dubs actually win.
Dubs add a new sense to the anime unlike subs.
the dubbing makes accents. Accents are important to countries right? dialog with the accents you are (mostly) used to hearing from that certain countries makes it all the more awesome.
subs are nice, but they arent as awesome to me.
But the lines change for some parts because sometimes you cant quite fit the lines in english. but the replaced lines are usually funny no matter.
I say Quality improves with dubs.
in fact it is the best dub i had ever heard.
(Funimation supplies the dubs. Watch em' here.
funimation.com search hetalia.)
Overall:
You can surely learn from it, and brush up on stereotypes. meet some new countries and learn racist jokes.
its more of a girl thing because of fans, but I know a few dudes liking it because they dont care about the fans.
this is more of a lolz anime and not a history lesson but hey its totally worth watching. you can watch this anytime, thanks to the short episodes. I dont think you could get bored of it.