The “Animated Empire” of Post-modern Heroes: Japanese Anime on Italian TV in the Late 70s

Abstract

From Pacific regions to European countries, mass communication's history had been exposed to numerous revolutions in the late 70s and early 80s: new TV shows, networks, technologies, audiovisual products, and disciplines examining the relationship between culture and media appeared. In those years, the Japanese media industry exported a huge amount of animated series in European countries and, especially in Italy, Pacific heroes became dominators of private and public networks that broadcasted their stories daily with great success. This article aims at tracing factors that opened Italian purchasers and spectators to the new Pacific heroes and at defining this cultural and economic phenomenon as an "animated empire" built for the last forty years. These phenomena can be explained by summarizing political, economic, social, and technological events that occurred in both Japan and Italy in the 1970s, such as the energy crisis of 1973, the economic dynamism of Japanese animation studios and Italian TV networks in the late 1970s, and the post-modern revolution of Italian society. The article examines these converging factors and relies upon a research path that is not new to the Italian scene, with