I've never bothered with the anime, only the manga (I own up to vol. 6, I believe). It just struck me as being written for the 10-and-under crowd, which involves a little too much adjusting on my end to make it a worthwhile fandom.

I've got a couple friends pimping me on Hetalia and anti-Hetalia fandom. Basically, I poked about on the main lj fan site for a few minutes, took note of the many translation errors, and haven't been back.

I agree with you on the BL, totally^^ Normally I'd be in to support the fanservice, but as the fandom's so illustration-based and I'm crap at drawing, well...