New Series Profile Hetalia

"Controversial" is such an open-ended word. With anime, it's typically used to refer to two basic kinds of shows. The first sport the easy kind of controversy: violence, sexuality, or material intended for mature audiences that seems aimed at younger viewers (for the latter, consider Shin-chan).

The second kind of controversy involves political incorrectness, or better to say variations in cultural viewpoints that don't always make sense from the outside. What's offensive in Japan may pass without a blink in the United States, and the same is often true in reverse as well. Case in point: Hetalia, a surprise hit anime about ... anthropomorphic countries.

It doesn't take much exposure to anime subculture to see examples of how everything can be made into anthropomorphic avatars/mascots, from countries to operating systems. Hetalia gets its controversy not just by doing this with nations -- and by preserving many of their traits (read: stereotypes), but by starting off with the nations that formed the Axis of WWII. Hence the original title for the series: Hetalia: Axis Powers.

Originally a webcomic, Hetalia has since been spun off into multiple seasons of a TV series and a standalone 60-minute feature film. Both the comics and the animation have been brought into English, and both (amazingly) still retain the same cheerfully un-P.C. attitude that they were created with.

Learn more about Hetalia by reading our series profile.

Image: Hetalia: Season One, courtesy Pricegrabber.