Axis Powers Hetalia Episode 108 ヘタリア Axis Powers

Based on a popular web-released manga series by Hidekazu Himaruya, this has been described as a "cynical gag" story set in Europe in the years between WW1 and WW2 (1915-1939), using exaggerated caricatures of the different nationalities as portrayed by a gaggle of bishounen boys. For example, the Italia Veneziano character is into pasta and women. The Deutsche (German) bishi loves potatoes and sausages, and Nippon is an otaku boy. Installments of the manga have jumped back and forth in setting

Alternative title:
Hetalia: World Series
ヘタリア World Series (Japanese)

Genres: comedy
Themes: bishounen, historical, moe, parody


Like stories in any medium, those in light novels are variable in quality. Some series based on them are quite brilliant, some unique, others merely better planned. And some are cliché-peddling genre-slaves as empty as the calories in a Pop-Tart. Of course, sometimes a toasted slab of sugar is what you're looking for. At times like those, you could do worse than Dragon Crisis!.

About the only thing that separates Dragon Crisis! from your average lump of romantic comedy clichés is its light-novel-derived short-story structure. And maybe a little extra depth in its setting. Ryuji is exactly that too-nice, personality-impaired guy we've come to expect from harem romances. He's too bland to really like, too kind to really hate, too weak-willed to resist being dragged into whatever adventure the series feels like staging at a particular time, and, not incidentally, too considerate to stomp on the feelings of women looking to join his harem. The girl-in-a-suitcase gimmick is a classic way of getting that started, and of course she absolutely has to be a superpowered beauty with the body of a thirteen-year-old, the mentality of a four-year-old, and the vocabulary of a two-year-old. And because it's what girls in suitcases do, she's got to imprint on Ryuji and move in with him, whereupon the bathing hijinks and naked glomming can begin. Future arcs introduce another dragon beauty and a feisty wolf-girl with two-tone eyes, both of whom succumb to Ryuji's magnetic personality while he's manfully protecting them. They also keep up the cutesy bonding between Ryuji and Rose, whose hearts, when joined, unleash untold magical powers.