Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asian continent and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea in the south.

Appearance
Japan is the only country with animal attribute, which reflect the crazy side of it's culture and remind of a Nekomimi/Nekochan (girl with cat's ears) or a Kistune. She is most the time wearing the clothing of Japanese students, including black loafers, long white socks, short navy blue skirt, with white top with a little red scarf.

Japan may also be shown to wear a business type of suit.

She is also represented wearing a kimono (in it's different version such as the yukata, relax version, or the furisode, weared usually for the tea ceremony) with geta ( sort of shoes made of wood), sometimes with a katana.

Personality
Japan is most of the time acting in a cute way. Even if she's mostly of the time acting in a crazy way, when it's about work, no ones stops her. She's never joking when it's about bussiness.

Even is she seems very outward looking, she's not rude, always smiling.

When she's angry, she will provoke you in a duel, watch out for her katana, it's very sharp.

Interests
Japan loves her pop culture based on manga, anime and all the crazy other stuff. Since USA showed her Baseball she's been in love with the sport and even Better than USA sometimes.

When she's too lazy to cook she eats box of noodles heated in her microwave. When she's not eating at home she brought with her bento (basically a box with delicious food in it).

She like wandering under the blossoming cherry trees.

The tea is something really important to her (some say she's a member of a secret coalition of tea fans), in particular when it's about tea ceremony.

Flag meaning
The flag is named "Hi no maru" but also "Nisshōki". The red circle represents the goddess of the sun Amateratsu.

Others symbols
The National Day of Japan is related to the birthday of the Emperor so it often change, at this moment it is the 23 february. The fact Japan has an emperor while it is not an empire is one of its particularity.

Nicknames
"The Land of the Rising Sun", this nicknames comes from the way Japanese people calls their country "Nihon" or "Nippon", which you can write in kanji (one of the form of writing of the language) :日本, here 日 means "sun" and 本 means "origin". The origine of the expression would date back to the letter wrote by the prince Shotoku to the Chinese emperor: "from the Son of Heaven in the land where the sun rises to the Son of Heaven in the land where the sun sets.".

Geography
Japan is an archipelago of 377 944 km2situated in East Asia and composed of 6 852 islands, but only 480 have ihabitants. The four most important are:
 * Honshū
 * Hokkaidō
 * Kyūshū
 * Shikoku

Family

 * Japanese Empire

Friends

 * France -
 * USA - (possible crush, fans might ship them)
 * Canada -
 * South Korea (sometimes) -
 * Serbia -
 * Greece -
 * Indonesia -
 * Philippines -
 * Bulgaria-
 * Costa Rica- Give me bananas!
 * Malta- friend forever
 * Thailand- old friend
 * Malaysia

Neutral

 * China - frenemies
 * Sicily

Enemies

 * North Korea - I don't like you, get out of my sight or else I'll try more nukes in your sea!
 * Japanese Empire (mother/past self) -

United-States of America
The two had really hard times during WW2, but after the two nuclear bombs Japan got under USA tutelage and completely changed to became this cute lil' thing. Japan got traumatise but USA seems to regrets this excessive use of nuke. Since the two countries are in good relation and Japan is always ready for some baseball. USA really appreciates Japan's pop culture. There has even been hints of Japan possibly liking USA a bit more, and some of the fans ship the two.

France
A strange fascination is shared by the two countries. Japan is very interested in the sophisticated side of the French culture (wine, castles) while France loves her pop culture (manga and anime). Also France is the second country consuming the most of mangas after the Japan himself.

Greece
These two countries both share a love for cats, hinting to Greece's stray cat population. They have a really good relationships strengthened by the fact they have the common point to be two very old civilisations and so are very interested in each others culture.Their relation is good in every domains.

Serbia
In 1882 Japan recognized Serbia as an Independent State in the congress of Berlin, their first diplomatic relation begun in 1882. During WW2 the two countries were in opposite camps, their relation was at it's lower point. Japan has exported a lot of products to Serbia since the dissolution of Yugoslavia (but was also an important trading partner of Yugoslavia and they had a really good relationships) and is one of most important Asian trader of Serbia.

South Korea
Their relationship is somewhat up and down, due to the fact that they've had some issues in the past when it comes to WWII that haven't been resolved, but they're okay friends and share a lot in common.

Thailand
They have really good diplomatic relation since 130 years and their first commercial relation started 600 years ago. Their royal families has been linked since a long time and Japan is the first foreign investor. They love visiting each other's landscape. Thailand is very inspired by Japan's culture.

China
The two countries has always have a very taut relation and fought many times, the most recent is the second Sino-Japanese war from 1937 to 1945 (so WW2). They're a not at the point to make a war today but they still rivals. Even if Japan is now considering collaboration rather than competition and has made the first move.

Trivia

 * The representation of Japan in Coutryhumans is mostly inspired by how act the characters in her pop culture. In reality, people more see it as a country of serious people working all the time.