Esplosioni nucleari, bombe incendiarie e castelli erranti. Gli Anime giapponesi e gli orrori della guerra = Nuclear explosions, incendiary bombs and wandering castles. Japanese animation (Anime) and the horrors of war

Abstract

The atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the defeat in World War II are traumas that have marked the collective consciousness and the imagination of Japan. Since the post-war period, the Japanese cultural industry has produced many products dedicated to these events. This paper focuses on the analysis of some Japanese anime that have addressed the theme of war. This typical Japanese medium is a vehicle for cultural transmission and a useful tool for historical and social analysis. In this paper, the anime are questioned focusing on the objective of detecting the elements that have characterized the representations of the war theme. To the synopsis of the films, then, is added the detection of aspects that characterized the narrative of the war. The analysis of ten animated movies reveals the attention given to technology, pacifism and relationships within "atypical" families. Anime are suitable cultural products to be at the centre of a series of intellectual studies" (Napier 2000, p. 118), because they are historical documents; agents of social change, because of their capacity to (re)define the imaginary; they are useful cultural products for sociological analysis because they are valuable documents of complex phenomena and tell the reality and its relational practices, even if through the distorting mirror of the cartoon.