AMINE AND MANGA - My Blog

Clamp (クランプ, Kuranpu), stylized as CLAMP, is an all-female Japanese mangaka group that formed in the mid 1980s. Many of the group's manga series are often adapted into anime after release. It consists of their leader Nanase Ohkawa (大川 七瀬, Ōkawa Nanase), who provides much of the storyline and screenplay for all their works and adaptations of those works respectively^{[citation needed]}, and three artists whose roles shift for each series: Mokona (もこな, Mokona), Tsubaki Nekoi (猫井 椿, Nekoi Tsubaki^?), and Satsuki Igarashi (いがらし 寒月, Igarashi Satsuki). Almost 100 million Clamp tankōbon copies have been sold worldwide as of October 2007.

Beginning as an eleven-member dōjinshi circle in the mid 1980s, they began creating original work in 1987. By the time they debuted with RG Veda in 1989, their numbers were reduced to seven. In 1993, three more members left, leaving the four members who are currently still part of the group. In 2006, each member decided to change her name, however later Nanase Ohkawa decided to change her name back (from Ageha Ohkawa back to her original name Nanase Ohkawa).

Hetalia: Axis Powers (ヘタリア Axis Powers , Hetaria Akushisu Pawāzu) is a webcomic, later adapted as a manga and an anime series, by Hidekaz Himaruya (日丸屋秀和, Himaruya Hidekazu). The series presents an allegorical interpretation of political and historic events, particularly of the World War II era, in which the various countries are represented by anthropomorphic characters. Hetalia (ヘタリア) is a portmanteau combining hetare (へタレ, Japanese for "useless") and Italia (イタリア). This is to make light of Italy's apparent cowardice during World War II.

Himaruya originally created Hetalia as an online webcomic, and so far two tankōbon have been published by Gentosha Comics, the first on March 28, 2008 and the second on December 10, 2008. The series was later adapted into drama CDs, and an anime series created by Studio Deen has also begun streaming online. On January 8, 2010, the anime series' international distribution was announced to be handled by Funimation Entertainment.

The main historical events portrayed in this work occur between World War I and World War II. The series often uses satire and comedy to address well-known historical events as well as historical and cultural trivia. Historical political and military interaction between countries is allegorically represented in Hetalia as social and romantic interaction between the characters; the webcomic version in particular depicts military and economic incursions using various innuendo.