Ships That Pass in the Night/Axis Powers Hetalia

The Axis Powers Hetalia series can justify fans creating pairs since the characters are countries and the story is based off of history. Even if the author has not covered a time where the nations interact, fans can call upon their history classes or The Other Wiki for evidence of their ship for fan works.


 * There are shippings including characters who don't exist in canon, but have the potential to exist, like Portugal, Israel, and Mexico.
 * Canada, being the Ensemble Darkhorse that he is, gets this quite a bit. Canada/Prussia is based off a single piece of dialogue involving an April Fool's joke and maple syrup, and Canada/Ukraine and Canada/Holland are popular due to the aforementioned history classes, even though he has yet to receive a strip with either one of them.
 * There was this Canada/Turkey one and a Canada/S Italy one. In real life, Canada mostly has a cordial relationship with them, though nothing entirely specific like America or England, and in the manga, has never even interacted or spoken to either of them.
 * Japan gets this a lot in the Japanese fandom as the main Launcher of a Thousand Ships there. Japan/Taiwan is fairly popular because of real-life history and the popular Fanon theory that Taiwan was engaged/married to Japan during her stay at his place, even though Taiwan's canon appearances so far have been exclusively with China. Japan/Prussia is even more popular, even though they don't have much real-life history together and haven't interacted even once in the strips. There are a lot more examples, but these two stand out the most for being in the top five pairings for Japan on Pixiv, beating out more obvious ships like Japan/Greece, Japan/England, Japan/America or Japan/Italy.
 * There is a little more canon support for Japan/Taiwan now, since the beginning of the "Ilha Formosa" strip has Taiwan cheerfully trying to read a not really thrilled Japan's fortune. Then Hetaween 2011 has Taiwan choosing her costume (as the Japanese virtual idol Silverlight) so Japan could see her on it. Whether that falls in Ship Tease or not is largely in the eye of the beholder.
 * America/Russia is like this, despite being one of the most popular pairings in the fandom. The two have minimal interaction in the manga/anime, and there are zero Ho Yay moments between them. Fans don't care. (Some even disregard canon entirely and regard other people's fanfic, like the very polemic The Chosen End, as canon.)
 * Well, there was that "condom warfare" strip with them (even if it was far less Ho Yay-filled than you might expect from a premise like that), and them being on the same side during WWII pretty much means that they must have interacted to some degree during that time. Although of course, the true reason for the sheer popularity of them as a pairing is the potential many Shipping Goggles-wearing fans see for delicious Cold War mind games and hatesex between them, hence why they don't mind that they've had little actual shown interaction in canon.
 * And then there's America/Belarus, based on a brief note in the manga about how America took care of Belarus when she left Russia's house for a little while. Other than that, the two have never had any shown interaction. Some people do treat America/Belarus as a Crack Pairing, but others ship them seriously, whether because they prefer het to slash or find the potential clash between America's Love Freakness and Belarus's Yandereness amusing/intriguing or the Japanese fanart for them too pretty to resist, or simply want Bela to be out of the way so they can pair up Russia with others without falling in Die for Our Ship.
 * Prussia/Liechtenstein seems to have a few followers, and they've never had any interaction. Really, anytime Liechtenstein is paired with anyone who isn't Switzerland; She's rarely been shown interacting with anyone else except him, England (a single strip) or Belarus (some 2009 sketches).
 * Estonia/Ukraine, too. There's only been a single tiny doodle of them made by Himaruya, paired with some info on them being both in the Gakuen universe's choir club. J-Fen has taken to shipping them quite a bit.
 * Again, the fourth manga volume caught up on this. Some parts of the Gakuen-based strip focus in the choir club, and it does show them interacting.
 * France/Germany also has what some might consider a surprisingly large base considering the fact that France and Germany aren't seen interacting that often, and taking into account the time and setting of the main story, obviously not positively (though of course APH is APH). The ship seems to stem largely from their modern day interactions, particularly their involvement in the EU. The G8 strip, which acknowledges this with a theatrically hurt France arguing with the seemingly-henpecked Germany in a amusing manner, was written and drawn after the shipping base had been firmly established, however.
 * America/Romano is popular enough to have a fairly active livejournal community even though the two have shared little to no screen time together.
 * Latvia and Liechtenstein have had no screen time together, but it appears that, for some, the adorableness of this Moe Couplet was too great to resist. They have a deviantART club.
 * England/Belarus is also gaining popularity in the fandom, especially on deviantART and Pixiv. Actually, for a what is essentially a complete crack pairing, some of the art on there is very high quality to say the least.
 * Hong Kong/Iceland have had only one or two panels of interaction in Hetaween 2011, and that is it. The thing is, they were a pairing before that. Well, a crack pairing to be exact, but a pretty damn popular one. Especially when you consider Denmark/Norway and Sweden/Finland to be the main pairings in the Nordic 5, leaving poor little Iceland all alone, it gives him someone to be with so that he's not a cock block to Denmark/Norway.

Back to Ships That Pass in the Night... unless a pair here has more blatant hints in the work.