I Think Maybe What The (western) Fandom In General Seems To Be Interested In Can Be Gauged By The Notes

I think maybe what the (western) fandom in general seems to be interested in can be gauged by the notes of the recent he/tas/cans posts. New micronations? Not much interest. Female nations? Despite all the general positivity about them, the notes are not significantly higher than similar posts. FACE family? As overrepresented in the notes as in the rest of the fandom.

[Note from Future!Me: this post got too long because I started rambling and checking notes for the Brexit and SpaPort Chapters, sorry!]

I think that'd be helpful but it'd resent from the sample pool being all from the Tumblr fanbase community (which I don't think is the majority of the Western fandom..?), which might have some inside biases and trends that don't necessarily reflect the Hetalia fandom outside of here. Translated Gangsta chapters are also being released by different blogs because h*tascans is a bit far behind afaik, so this might influence the potential exposure too.

Notes themselves also do not necessarily reflect the real engagement because some people might be reading Hetalia without having a Tumblr account or they might avoid to heart the posts (you know, some people are still afraid of admitting they're into Hetalia). A views counter would probably be a little more accurate, but even then it still isn't a very safe way of determining whether Hetalia is doing well or bad chapter by chapter for the Western fandom.

As for the Eastern fandom (and a small percentage of the Western one), surely Hetalia is doing well enough with them since World Stars has been running since 2014 and merch has never stopped coming out (afaik?).

You got me curious about the average number of notes in the infamous Brexit Chapters as opposed to the SpaPort chapters, though (I think all of Gangsta is too new for the data to be considered 'final', especially the last Rusita chapter which probably blew up a bit but it has been less than a week, so yeah): • Brexit Arc Notes, as of 4 August 2024 • Chapter 191: 4139 Notes [25 July 2016] - Chapter 415: 935 Notes [17 Feb 2022] Chapter 416: 594 Notes [24 Feb 2022] Chapter 417: 612 Notes [3 Mar 2022] Chapter 418: 645 Notes [10 Mar 2022] Chapter 419: 930 Notes [17 Mar 2022] Chapter 420: 950 Notes [24 Mar 2022] - Chapter 467: 1177 Notes [9 Mar 2023] Chapter 473: 1171 Notes [20 April 2023] Chapter 474: 727 Notes [27 April 2023] Chapter 475: 368 Notes [4 May 2023] Chapter 476: 459 Notes [18 May 2023] Chapter 477: 612 Notes [25 May 2023] Chapter 478: 571 Notes [1st June 2023] Chapter 479: 733 Notes [8 June 2023] Chapter 480: 757 Notes [15 June 2023] Chapter 481: 1047 Notes [22 June 2023] Chapter 482: 664 Notes [29 June 2023] Chapter 483: 810 Notes [6 July 2023] Chapter 484: 523 Notes [13 July 2023]

(Yes the Brexit Arc didn't feel insanely long, it was insanely and inexplicably long)

• SpaPort/Olive Oil Test Chapters Notes as of 4 August 2024 • Chapter 428: 1192 Notes [19 May 2022] Chapter 429: 801 Notes [26 May 2022] Chapter 430: 632 Notes [2 June 2022] Chapter 431: 623 Notes [9 June 2022]

I'm gonna add that Chapter 432, which has Gerita Interactions (something HWS was kinda scarce of at the time) has 1251 Notes.

What I noticed, by scrolling through chapters and glancing at notes (I had to scroll through some unrelated ones too because Hetarchive's HWS chapters index is incomplete and I had to cross-check on Shonen Jump Plus' site as I searched for the translations), is that interest seems to peak when there are settings and situations that are considered Hetalia classics - Main Cast or Europeans messing with each other especially in Conference setting, or historically but of course if no Main Cast is involved they tend to do quite worse -, but then progressively sinks when people realize HWS is no APH and the situations tend to be either too dragged or too fast, verbose, underwhelming, sanitarized and with characters acting like shells of their real selves, serving the educational trivia they are describing instead of that trivia being integrated in scenes that actually make sense for their Hetalia selves.

Peaks often happen at the change of setting, especially if characters that are loved a lot or were greatly anticipated show up again, or if something fandom-appealing happens (Chapter 419-420 had Philippines and some other ASEAns appear again after over 20 chapters, and 419 also had some light GerFra messing around). It's as if people hope for the new thing to be good, but then kind of lose faith and grow bored with it until the new change. I included Chapter 467 in the Brexit Arc but it was actually a short, yonkoma-style chapter featuring the UK Bros sharing their opinion over England, which I think explains the peak in notes. Chapter 466 also did very well for today's standards (1087 notes) and it featured the Italies with a focus on Romano, but I believe the one thing that made it blow up a little compared to the two previous chapters which were part of the same arc (763 and 640 notes respectively) was Romano being shown singing at the end.

Anyways, back to the Brexit Arc, Chapter 473 picks back the Brexit topic and features the UK Bros like Chapter 467 and does similar numbers (1177 and 1171). Chapter 474 sees quite a sink at 727 Notes, and no wonder, because that's where the entire arc turns into all the characters acting weirdly to fit as visual description of a mere percentage number instead of each getting a bit space to truly integrate that trivia, if possible, within their own character and flesh it out in a proper gag. Now, credit where it's due, this is not the first time Hima crowds multiples characters and make them say a one-line that describes a historical or numerical hard-fact, but there is a difference between this being a random part of a broader, fleshed-out situation (ie: in 'Maria Theresa and the Seven Years' War', or 'Lithuania's Out-Sourcing Part 3') and it making up like, over 50% of the actual arc. Honestly, Brexit itself was just a pretty lame thing to build such a long Arc from if you ask me, like I don't think there was objectively enough content also because it's too close in time to nowadays ... And the "Let's Interview Countries About What They Think of Brexit!" format with a human journalist asking Countries around just- wasn't a good idea. Because it basically trapped the characters into a rather rigid scheme. It was like, fanservice where everyone appears at least in one panel at the expense of no one truly mattering. And it definitely didn't pay off, considering many people consider the Brexit Arc pretty underwhelming if not bad. Chapter 476 (459 Notes) has freaking 12 characters in 5 pages for God's sake! And 8 of them are being interviewed. It's too much for one single chapter that is made up of 5 pages. Hetalia traditionally has a fast-paced humor, but here there isn't even humor, this is just characters saying something and then disappearing again. There is no truly constructed gag around their opinion, nothing comparable to classic Hetalia humor. This is why some people feel that many parts of HWS feel 'sanitized', and the Brexit Arc shines particularly bad when it comes to this. And btw, I'm not saying that each of those characters should've had a designated gag, the point is that quality should prevail over quantity. It'd have been okay not to feature everyone, but at least those appearing should've had some actual substance to their appearance. Otherwise it's just frustrating.

Sorry, not to Austria-posting here because it's out of topic, but "at least try to hide the fact that you aren't remotely interested!?" is such an amazing line because it kind of describes what's the issue with the "Brexit Interview" format and why many characters feel like hollow shells of themselves in here especially// Anyways, I think the following chapters resented a lot from the huge mess Ch476 is. Not that the rest of the arc is amazing, but I do believe that for instance Ch479 handles the interview format better by having less characters. Cyprus also sort of throws shade at how the interviewer is asking everyone and their mother:

(note how Greece and Spain, who seem to be more acquainted with Arthur than Cyprus, look like they're sort of disagreeing with his words - which sound pretty much like the standard description you'd make of someone you don't know super well but don't want to offend.) Whenever Hima does stuff like this in HWS, I cannot help but wonder if deep down there's some criticizing of editors' requests between the lines.

Chapter 481 finally gets another peak at 1047 Notes! And guess what? It has some rather unhinged France flirting with Germany:

As well as Poland appearing again after many chapters (as well as Liet who had briefly appeared in Ch474), which probably helped the notes too:

After this peak, the Brexit Arc only has a few more chapters left and they do pretty bad in terms of notes, with the last chapter (which only features Hungary and Ireland) stopping at 523 Notes, after a chapter that did sort of decently (810 Notes) featuring the UK Bros and the proper conclusion of the Arc (the Ireland/Hungary interaction is more of an aftermath extra thing I think).

...

As for the SpaPort Chapters, they sort of follow the pattern I've come to theorize as I looked through the Brexit Chapters. First Chapter does incredibly well: with 1192 Notes, it is the chapter with the highest amount of notes among those taken into account, except for Chapter 191 which was released back in 2016 (where Brexit is first mentioned, and that chapter has 4139 Notes, pretty insane for today's average although it indeed had a lot more time to pile up notes I guess).

The reason why it sort of blew up is blatant, and I think it partially also had to do with how, back then especially, there was a trend of people claiming that Himaruya had changed for the best and sort of 'disowned' the unhingedness and sexual ambiguities of pre-World Stars Hetalia (and, to a certain degree, also of some parts of early HWS, admittedly). Many people, especially older fans who enjoy early content (like me >w<), felt extremely validated by this SpaPort Chapter because it gave us hope to see content similar to back then again and also confirmed the suspicion that Himaruya didn't actually change all that much but that the 'issue' (if you may call it that way) most likely lied in Shonen Jump Plus' direction instead. It also gave quite the euphoria to SpaPort Shippers because this chapter went against people who claimed Spain and Portugal were meant to be siblings and that shipping them was extremely problematic. When canon source does something some parts of the fandom frown upon and shame other fans for, it always gives validation to the other party, and in sanitarized HWS times, it was always a much needed fresh breath of air.

... But alas, this is still World Stars, and after the initial hype this chapter brought, as always, Shonen Jump kinda drags Himaruya down and remind him he can't do anything that crosses his mind lol

Chapter 429 still does decently (810 Notes) although it sinks from the previous one. I think this can be explained by how, once again, in World Stars' fashion, the initial good idea gets drowned into a sea of educational text.

Despite Spain's lovely face coated in olive oil and Portugal's sort of spicy attitude, it is still a bunch of trivia that, rather than being acted out in funny or intense gags, are simply illustrated by static characters and lots of text. We got thrown back into the World Stars Experience(tm) and, even though this chapter still holds up kind of well thanks to the overall setting, it starts turning into a disappointment because we realized it was not much about Spain and Portugal's relationship, but rather about Spain and Portugal teaching you trivia about olive oil and other Countries' ranking.

... And so, the last two chapters sink more and more, getting 632 and 623 Notes each.

This is probably a pattern that isn't consistent throughout the entirety of World Stars (or earlier content, but that'd be harder to investigate), but it seems to be proven true for at least the chapters/arc I took into consideration.

As for Gangsta, it is too early to truly get an insight of its reception among fans because it's still ongoing, but people were indeed extremely curious about it! The translation of Chapter1 (511) collected 2258 Notes from February 8 2024, despite getting potentially obstacled in circulation by the fact that it wasn't posted nor worked on by hetascanlations.

No Gangsta Chapter has topped that yet on Tumblr, or has hit over 1000 notes in general. There's also the problem of the translation having gotten a bit fragmented in the first weeks because Chapters 512~515 were translated by both zakuramochi and withnofreetime and only from Ch516 onwards it seems to have found a stable home on @withnofreetime. Either way, it's even harder to keep track of engagement for Gangsta because of this fragmentation, and something I haven't taken into consideration is that there might be other translation floating around in other socials and communities, such as verusmayaii's on Twitter. Here's a MasterList of Gangsta fantranslation sources that @hetalianhistorian is keeping up to date, in case someone needs it :3

Huhhh well.

This answer went places, didn't it? xD I didn't plan to write or research this much, but you got me curious to check out the notes chapter by chapter especially for the Brexit Arc anon!!

I wonder if anyone has gotten this far in reading//// If anyone did, I feel very honored!! Have some ice cream~