Review of Hetalia Axis Powers: Paint it, White!
Overview: I'm VERY happy to finally write this review of the Axis Powers Hetalia Movie. Why? It means I will never have to review anything else Hetalia related ever again! Plot: Wait a minute...does this mean APH actually has a plot?! For the movie adaptation of Hetalia, yes it does! Do they finally do what the series was allegedly created for and finish telling the story of WW2 with our anthropomorphic Yaoi countries? Hell NO! Instead we get a plot about aliens invading Earth. So Hetalia went from being all about WW2 to being about space aliens? (Insert joke about the History Channel here)! The aliens wishto end conflict on Earth by erasing all the world's unique cultures and making every nation completely bland and homogeneous. Yes, the Hetalia movie is a long rant against the forces of globalization and the erosion of traditional cultural heritage. (slow clap). It may have been a REALLY obvious allegory that would make even Frank Herbert facepalm, but at least the Hetalia writers tried harder than usual this time. That is to say the Japanese writers tried harder. The American script was written entirely by Funimation voice acting legend Chuck Huber, who just makes gay joke after gay joke. Honestly, at least Chuck appreciates who the fanbase is and WHY the show is actually popular. Chuck gave the fangirls exactly what they wanted, so I can't really blame him.
Art:
The art and animation for the official movie was honestly WAY better than the series. The use of CG was surprisingly well done and we even get a fight scene that looked decent! I'm serious, it looked better and was better choreographed than some of the later episode fights in Bleach!
Entertainment:
"Italy...WHY DID YOU BRING A CAT WITH YOU!!!" Literally about 95% of Hetalia's entertainment is derived from Patrick Seitz's absolutely incessant yelling and over the top German accent. I'm not quite sure why Americans seem to believe that Germans just yell at the top of their lungs all the time. Probably because of that one short, Austrian guy that died 70 years ago. The closest the movie gets to honestly being funny was when the various countries tried to impress the aliens with their own native cultures. America takes them to Vegas, China cooks for them, Russia forces them to watch ballet against their wills, and England nearly causes the annihilation of mankind by trying to give them a sample of his horrible cooking. That was almost funny!
Overall: 3/10
Was it a surprise to anyone that this movie wasn't very good?! The art is an impressive upgrade, the voice acting is fine, and the bare bones of a decent allegory and cultural commentary on globalization are...almost there at times. The latter being sort of like a rejected episode of South Park that was never quite finished. However, the humor is pretty awful and the movie quickly gets tedious and annoying. Honestly, if you want to watch a stupid comedy featuring ethnic stereotypes and horrible German accents, I would recommend Beerfest. At least it is WAY better than Hetalia.