Show us something that makes you feel patriotic about your home country. I’ll go first.
Anime is Food Wars. pic.twitter.com/5Ce7zDMudy
— J-LIST (@jlist) February 19, 2020
One of the most amusing aspects of watching anime is seeing what kinds of silly stereotypes will be inserted to represent characters from the U.S., Britain, Russia, and the other major countries in the world. Sometimes these can be somewhat groan-inducing, but other times they can make us feel proud to see our home countries represented in anime. I asked J-List’s Twitter followers to share their favorite patriotic anime images related to their home countries, and this is what we came up with.
There are a lot of patriotic anime images of the USA, with side characters often being included. Americans in anime are always tall, sporting flamboyant personalities and positive attitudes.
Americans are portrayed as being “my pace” (living life at their own pace) and being outside of social rules, which they can pull off because they’re American.
British girls nearly always seem to be blonde, be extremely cultured and drink tea constantly, even while fighting in a tank.
It’s great when anime can make us feel patriotic and happy about our home countries. If you’re from Canada, does this advertisement (made by Your Name director Makoto Shinkai) promoting tourism in Canada make you feel patriotic? pic.twitter.com/qgTjZvgTSR
— Peter Payne (@JListPeter) February 23, 2020
Canada doesn’t get that much love in anime, and I was going to go for the generic option of a Hetalia gif. Then I remembered this awesome commercial animated by Your Name-creator Makoto Shinkai promoting tourism in Canada. Sadly I couldn’t find any anime gifs of characters eating poutine.
China is well represented in anime, nearly always with highly skilled characters who wear “China dresses” (aka qipao) every day. Do they wear those in China?
When the girls from A Place Further Than the Universe stopped off at Singapore on their way to Antarctica, a squee of joy was heard, as Singaporean fans thrilled to see their country represented in anime.
Despite having a close relationship with Australia, there’s not much representation of the country in anime other than good old Hetalia, an episode of Sabagebu where the characters travel there to engage in Mad Max jokes, plus an anime based on Lucy May Poppel.
France is well represented in anime, from Rose of Versailles to Nodame Cantabile. In an episode of Dagashi Kashi poor Hotaru gets France and Italy mixed up a little.
Italy also shows up in anime a lot, in such great shows as Kurenai no Buta and Gunslinger Girl. The 4th season of Lupin III was outstanding, set entirely in beautiful locations in Italy.
Germany gets a big shoutout in JoJo, and many popular characters hail from the country, from Laura Bodewig to Erica Hartman.
Even Romania has a legendary character to get behind!
Swiss
If you’re from Switzerland, there’s a good chance you know and love Heidi, Girl of the Alps, which is a very patriotic anime for that country.
The Manekin Pis statue in Belgium is ridiculously famous in Japan, and there’s a replica of the statue in Hamamatsucho Station in Tokyo. Every week attendants dress him in different cute costumes.
Then there was the time a bunch of cute girls in tanks sang the famous Russian wartime song Katyusha. pic.twitter.com/c4KCY9gJy9
— Peter Payne (@JListPeter) February 23, 2020
Japan seems to be fascinated by Russians, and imagine them to have magical fairy-like powers. The Katyusha song from Girls und Panzer was a great moment of friendship between Russia and Japan.
The Scandinavian countries don’t get featured in anime very much except for these guys…
Vinland Saga! A long and detailed dramatic anime about Vikings living in the old days. How cool is that?
I couldn’t find any Dutch anime characters, but don’t worry: “Neo Holland” gets an awesome mecha in G Gundam.
Mexico is another country that’s under-represented in Japan, which probably has something to do with the fact that there was a diaspora of Japanese emigrating to Peru and Brazil in the early 20th century, but not to Mexico. As a result, it can be a real challenge to get anything resembling decent Mexican food in Tokyo, and the only Mexican anime image I could find was the Teqilla Gundam.
Finally, India gets a few references, most famously in the hardworking character Arvind Lavie from the outstanding Planetes by Sunrise.
Got any other interesting nationalities represented in anime? How about a patriotic anime image that makes you feel good about your country? Tell us on Twitter!
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