“ Hetalia” is one of Japanese animations, in which all the countries of the world are represented as people. For example, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, US, and Japan are Men. Liechtenstein, Belarus and Taiwan are described as Women. Last time in class I watched the episode of Switzerland and Liechtenstein. From the ways the anime describe the relationship between those two, it is clear that they are in dependency relationship: Liechtenstein depends on brother Switzerland.
First of all, this is the largely content of the episode of the two: starting with Liechtenstein’s cutting her hair in order to look like her brother, being self-conscious about her chest when she was mistaken as a boy, and ending with Switzerland buying her a ribbon. Throughout the episode, Switzerland is very protective of Liechtenstein, and in turn Liechtenstein is very respectful and grateful to him for saving her. These are typical gender-roll. Because I see “ Men do protect women” all the time, I understood their relationship without difficulty.
In addition Liechtenstein is deeply attached to her “ brother” Switzerland strengthen my idea about their relationship. Another point that described their dependency relationship is the scene when Liechtenstein cutting her hair and wearing military uniforms in order to be alike with Switzerland. In begging she wore a pink dress and long-hair. These are one of the most typical famine symbols, and giving up those made it clear that she was adopted by Switzerland meaning be part of his family. As narrated in the opening, after the WW?
Liechtenstein became extremely poor and there was need to be depend on Switzerland, and as I mentioned the above and also the two share a kind of sibling love, they are not blood related, are all metaphors of forming a union through their countries. For the above reasons Switzerland and Liechtenstein are in dependency relationship. The relationship between characters personifying different countries was pretty amusing. The more I learn about world history, the more I want to learn about their history. This may be an animation but I think it is one of ways to learn about world history from the author’s view point.
