Maghette, fancy idols e campioni olimpici. Gli anime giapponesi nella TV per ragazzi dell’Italia degli anni ’80

Mass communication’s history has been exposed to numerous revolutions in the late 70’s and early 80’s: new TV shows, channels, technologies and disciplines examining the relationship between culture and media appeared. In those years European countries, especially Italy, imported a massive amount of Japanese cartoons and broadcasted them on private networks. Several scholars and experts have named this phenomenon anime boom. By shortly summarizing political, economical, social and technological events that occurred in Italy in the 80’s, such as the establishment to produce new TV programs expressively dedicated to children and young adolescent (the so-called children’s TV), the article analyses two anime’s genres very popular in that decade, majokko anime (with magic little girls) and spokon anime (with sports’ champions). The article aims to examine those genres, their narratives, characters, modes and imageries they contributed to create, and to demonstrate their pedagogic qualities that have influenced the sensitivity and behaviours of thousands of children. Economic reasons, indeed, pushed the purchase of Japanese cartoons in the beginning, however the educational value and the attention to characters’ psychology made their success incomparable among Italian children in the 80’s.