(Anyone unfamiliar with Axis Powers Hetalia probably saw that title and thought “WTF?”)

To be honest, when I got into Hetalia, I didn’t see the point of having an OTP in the series. It’s history. Everyone eventually ends up with everyone else at one point or another. I’d read fic or see comments about historical alliances and think, “Huh. Yeah, I can see that working… damn, I kinda ship it now.” At one point I stopped even referring to it as “shipping” because it seemed far too casual.

Then I was introduced to one of a handful of canon couples, and my perspective shifted yet again.

Meet Roderich Edelstein and Elizaveta Hedevary, aka Austria and Hungary.

At first glance, these two seem to fall into the typical couple mold. One is a gung-ho warrior who bashes people over the head with frying pans and secretly (or not-so-secretly) loves yaoi; the other is a mild-mannered, aristocratic piano aficionado with a tendency to get lost and a slightly prudish manner.

But if you think this shipping is all stereotypes, think again. Hungary is the hot-blooded one, and Austria has the artistic spirit. Hungary was so hardcore even as a child that for quite a while, she and everyone around her thought she was a guy, and she was convinced that the… er, requisite parts would just grow in as she got older. (Poor Prussia was so confused.) On the other hand, Austria was meant to be a warrior state… and failed at that miserably. Now he simply expresses his anger by playing Chopin’s piano sonatas.

Part of this ship’s appeal to me is the reversal of these typical roles. It’s more than a little amusing to see Hungary trying to protect her husband’s virtue and chasing after perverts like France with her ever-present frying pan, rather than the other way around. And of course, there’s something incredibly attractive about a guy that plays piano.

Don’t get me wrong. Hungary has her tender side, particularly towards Chibitalia (young Italy) and the Holy Roman Empire, and Austria has lashed out verbally at various characters on more than one occasion. He also tends to be a bit passive-aggressive; during the Anschluss set of comics and subsequent strips, we can see him being an obnoxious parasite to Germany just to get a rise out of him. But for the most part, Austria’s level-headedness is sharply and hilariously contrasted by Hungary’s rambunctious behavior.

For the longest time, Hungary was Austria’s maid, not his love interest. Their character notes say that she didn’t like being subservient to him, but she “harbor[ed] complicated, yearning-like feelings”. The notes and comics are all but silent on Austria’s perspective, though there is still some evidence he was fond of her. And even though now they’re technically divorced (in real-world canon, Austria-Hungary was split into separate countries in 1918), there’s still a lot of chemistry between them. The Christmas 2007 strips (warning: very much NSFW) show Austria being willing to do just about anything to make Hungary smile. (You may interpret that as you wish.) Even more recently, in the Buon San Valentino strips, he hand-makes a gift for her and is going to deliver it himself… until Germany reminds him that he has absolutely no sense of direction and would get lost. He has someone else deliver it instead, though he refuses to give his name. Hungary still figures out who it was, and is very much d’awwwwww over the whole thing.

While I wouldn’t call this my OTP, not by a long shot, I definitely support this ship. Reasons why:

1) It’s undeniably canon, both in-universe and real-world. This may just be a “me” thing, but I like my Hetalia!pairings to have some historical accuracy. Plus it makes their story more interesting and provides a lot of material for fics and canon strips.

2) It’s cute, dammit.

3) They just work together. You’d think a high-born gentleman like Austria would get fed up with Hungary’s shenanigans and send her packing, or that someone like Hungary would get annoyed having such a pacifist as a husband. But if they’ve been together for this long, I think it’s safe to say they can look forward to enjoying many years in each other’s company.

~Jenni

PS – This fanart piece of Austria is hawt.

We all learned a lot this weekend. CJ learned how to BS improvise the first 25 minutes of a panel when the projector fails. Rakuen learned functioning on 3 hours of sleep is not easy. (We suspect he already knew that, but perhaps he’d forgotten?) Dave learned nothing, because he was busy working his butt off running the game rooms. And Jenni learned that 4 Russias and one Latvia makes for a very interesting photoshoot.

It was an educational weekend, but most importantly, it was fun (and more than a little wild.) Our writers presented 3 panels, including Anime Blogging 101 and the premiere of Anime Blogging 201. Though we had to battle a fair number of screw-ups and miscommunications, everything worked out in the end, and we made the most of the best Ohayocon yet.

CJ (Friday and Saturday)

Friday was madness. (Not Sparta.) Jen and I got there at 7 pm, leaving an hour to get our badges and find Panel Room 9 for the Soul Eater panel. Bad idea. She was still in the reg line when I finally got my panelist badge at around 7:40. Fortunately, I was able to get an extra panelist badge for her (without even asking!) and we went on our way. But due to a few staffers not even knowing where Panel 9 was, it took us nearly 20 minutes to find it. That put us right at 8 pm, when the hour-long panel was set to start. And then…

… the projector wasn’t working. We got black lines of death across the screen, which wasn’t the end of the world, but still very very bad for ADHD-tan. As the tech guys took over my laptop to attempt to search for a solution, I found myself facing a room of about 40 people… with no visuals. So I improvised for 20 or so minutes until my laptop magically fixed itself (@#%&ing Windows.) After that, things went very smoothly, complete with Excalibur spamming and emo distorted facial expressions. I managed to make people laugh a lot even during the projector-less, spazzy-CJ period. Thanks to everyone for coming out and sitting through the panel, despite our technical issues!

After that, I went to the rave, got hit on by a 20-something-year-old, and went back to my room by my 1 am curfew. (Jenni simply knitted in the room that whole time. Sigh.) The rave was really pretty epic, but it started an hour late, and the floor wasn’t exactly nice to sit on. Fortunately, there was a Belle cosplayer (from Beauty and the Beast) with some really awesome friends who all kept us entertained. They even sang the entire uncensored version of “I’m on a Boat” from memory. Yeah. I lol’d HARD.

Saturday started with a bright n’ early 11 am Phoenix Wright photoshoot! Aaron-oniichan took pictures of my Ema Skye cosplay premiere. (Rohfa from D.Gray-man only partially counts because I didn’t have the hair anywhere near done. Sigh.) I had a great time the 16-20 cosplayers there, but I also kinda didn’t really know what I was doing pose-wise, so I looked pretty dumb in some of the shots.  ^_^;; But now I’ve worked out a few more poses and will be ready to go when the really really complete version (I still need a pink watch and pseudo-stripper shoes) at… whatever cons I end up at in the fall. Hopefully Matsuricon, but it’s all gonna depend on what college I end up at.

After that, the last order of business for Jenni and I was the Anime Blogging panels and a little more dealer’s room madness. The panels went great, and we had the awesome guys from Ending B out again, as well as some new faces. The premiere of 201 went as well as could be expected, but we found a few bits to tweak before the next con. It also ended about 10 minutes early. ^_^; After a bit more shopping and D.Gray-man photoshoot peeping, Jen and I left around 5 pm.

Convention Score: 7.5 out of 10 California rolls

Aaron (Friday, Saturday and Sunday)

Last year’s Ohayocon really disappointed me, to the point that I wished it would either improve or just let itself die.  Thus this year, I really had no hopes for anything, which meant whatever they accomplished would be a positive.  I have to say, overall, I was surprised.

Look, the East, is burning red.

Security’s behavior improved greatly over previous years.  While I have heard of a few complaints, overall they were helpful, more noticeable, and much less overbearing.  The panel staff as well seemed to be on their game, at least on Saturday while I was there.  They came in to check on us, warned us promptly at the 5-minute mark, and actually knew how to fix the projector problem.  The expansion project on the hotel that occurred in the past year meant the game room was moved to a much more spacious and manageable location.  I had no dealings with Cosplay this year, so I have nothing to say on that.  Really, the only pure negative I saw was the rave, which will always be a problem until the convention can obtain a larger room.

Lots of flexibility, very low mobility. He's a trooper.

As for my experience at the convention, I arrived at 9:30 AM on Saturday morning.  It’s far later than I wished to get there, but because of my own transportation problems, that’s the best I could do.  Getting my badge was quick and painless.  I shot the Phoenix Wright photoshoot for CJ, which I’d say was run fairly well.  Afterward I wandered around for a bit before our panels.  We had probably 20 people for 101 and 15 for 201, which is a decent crowd.  I know I enjoyed the experience; hopefully everyone else did as well.

God Knows...

After that, it was time for CJ and Jenni to head home.  I managed to finally eat something, and met up with my good friends Mataime, Nonobadpup, and Samtoenail (yes, we know they’re odd names).  That is how I spent the majority of my evening and most of Sunday.  I decided against the Masquerade, I didn’t really like it last year and I probably would have fallen asleep from exhaustion if I’d have gone.  On the other hand, I met an amazing artist Saturday night.  Del Borovic was working on commissions late at night, and we chilled with her and watched her work.  She’s going to start up a new webcomic in a few weeks as well, you should definitely show her some love.  Sunday was check out, eating lunch with friends, and a short YYH photo shoot before I went home.

My friends are amazing, thanks for another great con!

Overall, I enjoyed my experience.  Ohayocon completely surprised me in their improvements over last year.  Where I once wished the convention would just be blown away, I’m actually looking forward to next year.  Keep up the improvements!

Convention Score: 7.5/10

Jenni (Friday and Saturday)

I have to say, everyone at Ohayocon was really super nice.  I was having vertigo issues Saturday morning and didn’t want to go to the Phoenix Wright photo shoot, so these Ed and Winry cosplayers (who I actually met two years ago) let me crash with them for about 45 minutes.  The whole weekend was like that.  I also got a lot of comments on my Rivendell sweater and my fire lizard.  Oh yeah, and the random people who ran by yelling “I JUST LOST THE GAME!!!” made my day.

And omigosh the Hetalia photoshoot. Three words: HOLY FREAKING CRAP.  Most photoshoots for major series had what, thirty, forty people show up?  Hetalia just got licensed two months ago, and probably over a hundred people were at the shoot.  It progressed from shots of the full cast to Allies/Axis/Neutral, to smaller groups like Baltics, Nordics, Asians, and FrUK family, to individual characters and pairings.  (There was ONE Latvia in the whole group – she was really sweet – and she ended up getting stuck in the middle of four Russias.

Awwwwww.)  I had a primo spot in the balcony overlooking the shoot and took a crapton of photos.  There were also some teriffic period costumes; France, Austria, and Prussia were some of the best.  And when I left 45 minutes after the shoot started to go to the panel, it was STILL GOING STRONG.

I had the English/grammar/mechanics portion of the panel, which went a lot better than I expected.  People actually seemed really interested (the crack about Twatlight got a few laughs), and at least no one walked out in the middle of my talk.  Always a good sign, right?

My swag included two dragon prints that look like they were painted by light (the artist also had a ton of koi pictures), an earring-chained-to-cuff set of hearts with Celtic knots inside, and another set with light purple Swarovski crystals to match my kimono-dress. ^_^