I'm Italian and I'm not proud of either Veneziano or Romano. Mind you the characters are lovable and I love them but to me they don't feel Italians or representations of north and south, both in present and past Italy. They lack some fundamental Italian knowledge and characteristics and really seem nothing more than the result of someone who'd only heard stereotypes about Italy but had no idea how Italians work. Sometimes I'm appalled when they lack of the basic knowledge and feelings an actual Italian or a past Italian should have, of how they represent the wrong part of Italy (Romano should be central Italy yet he's south, north Italy was split in many states with different histories yet we've one single character, the friendly southerns had been turned into a guy perpetually angry and insecure than's not proud of himself at all and that's very rude with people, the not so sociable and always busy northerns have been turned into an overly friendly, overly clingy guy who spends most of his time sleeping).

It's true it wouldn't have been easy to represent faithfully Italy as Italy had been cut in many parts and therefore each of this parts developed a different history and character. People from Lombardy aren't the same from people from Emilia or from Piedmont or from Veneto or from Trentino, even if they're all northerns, still Veneziano came out as a characters that suffers of the fact he's supposed to represent too many things while his author has only vague knowledge of them (and I've the feelings in the original plans Veneziano was supposed to represent all Italy, ence why he's called Italy, differently from his brother and why he has the friendly nature that many associate with italy but that's actually more southern than northern).

So I fear it's more a problem of being impossible to represent Italy with just Veneziano and Romano and the little knowledge Himaruya had at the time he created them than anything else that causes me to feel very distant from the way those 2 acts.