[Hetalia] New character design - Greenland?!
So, Animate released some previews for some new limited-edition merch. And one of the previews includes a design for a new character.
Twitter announcement | Merch preview | Announcement on Hetalia archives
The name definitely translates to Greenland, and the design is different enough from any of the other characters, so it looks like it's definitely a new character. Unfortunately, the image is too small to see it clearly, and I'm not even sure if Greenland is male or female because I just plain can't tell (and they look a little like Iceland - I wonder if that was intentional, or if it's just due to Himaruya's sameface syndrome?). I'm enamoured with his cute animal friend, though.
I'm curious as to whether the final button designs will be coloured or not. They look a little odd with just the lineart. Also, a positive thing unrelated to Greenland's design: Denmark and Norway are in new clothes designs! They're both wearing folk customes, how cute.
Anyway. This Greenland preview is really unusual. It is not typical for new Hetalia characters to be announced through merch releases. Usually they come up as a design on Himaruya's blog, or on webstrips on his site. So, this is really eyebrow-raising. Part of me wonders if this Greenland merch will not actually be released, since sometimes preview images and the actual result look completely different - I haven't run into that much with Hetalia, but it happened a lot in a doll-collecting fandom I was in. It's just too strange for this to be true.
The best-case scenario would be if: Greenland makes an appearance in a Jump strip that comes out shortly before this limited merch is released. It would make sense, but I don't know how likely it actually will be.
My personal thoughts: WELL my headcanon has been tossed out the window - I was hoping for a girl with long braided hair. And I would have preferred Faroe Islands to be introduced instead, but oh, well. Hopefully there will be a strip to accompany this, or at least an entry on Himaruya's blog about the character or something, because it would be really weird for a character to be introduced in this way without him saying something about it. As for Greenland as a character, I'm mostly interested in relations with Canada, USA, and Iceland, and not so much the Nordic countries as a group. A WWII-era strip with Greenland and USA could be interesting. Though maybe I should just hope that fandom will deliver on that front.
I'm hoping that the final version of the merch will be colour rather than lineart, or that at least there will be a coloured design on Himaruya's blog. But at the same time, I'm prepared for the possibility of being disappointed in what the coloured version of the design might look like - that is, if it leans more European than Aboriginal, I'll be definitely disappointed. I suppose that no matter what the final design looks like, the fandom will wank about it, but then again they wank about everything.
This entry was originally posted at http://yuuago.dreamwidth.org/3409810.html. You can comment here or at the original entry.
Twitter announcement | Merch preview | Announcement on Hetalia archives
The name definitely translates to Greenland, and the design is different enough from any of the other characters, so it looks like it's definitely a new character. Unfortunately, the image is too small to see it clearly, and I'm not even sure if Greenland is male or female because I just plain can't tell (and they look a little like Iceland - I wonder if that was intentional, or if it's just due to Himaruya's sameface syndrome?). I'm enamoured with his cute animal friend, though.
I'm curious as to whether the final button designs will be coloured or not. They look a little odd with just the lineart. Also, a positive thing unrelated to Greenland's design: Denmark and Norway are in new clothes designs! They're both wearing folk customes, how cute.
Anyway. This Greenland preview is really unusual. It is not typical for new Hetalia characters to be announced through merch releases. Usually they come up as a design on Himaruya's blog, or on webstrips on his site. So, this is really eyebrow-raising. Part of me wonders if this Greenland merch will not actually be released, since sometimes preview images and the actual result look completely different - I haven't run into that much with Hetalia, but it happened a lot in a doll-collecting fandom I was in. It's just too strange for this to be true.
The best-case scenario would be if: Greenland makes an appearance in a Jump strip that comes out shortly before this limited merch is released. It would make sense, but I don't know how likely it actually will be.
My personal thoughts: WELL my headcanon has been tossed out the window - I was hoping for a girl with long braided hair. And I would have preferred Faroe Islands to be introduced instead, but oh, well. Hopefully there will be a strip to accompany this, or at least an entry on Himaruya's blog about the character or something, because it would be really weird for a character to be introduced in this way without him saying something about it. As for Greenland as a character, I'm mostly interested in relations with Canada, USA, and Iceland, and not so much the Nordic countries as a group. A WWII-era strip with Greenland and USA could be interesting. Though maybe I should just hope that fandom will deliver on that front.
I'm hoping that the final version of the merch will be colour rather than lineart, or that at least there will be a coloured design on Himaruya's blog. But at the same time, I'm prepared for the possibility of being disappointed in what the coloured version of the design might look like - that is, if it leans more European than Aboriginal, I'll be definitely disappointed. I suppose that no matter what the final design looks like, the fandom will wank about it, but then again they wank about everything.
This entry was originally posted at http://yuuago.dreamwidth.org/3409810.html. You can comment here or at the original entry.