Meloni-chan, the manga version of the Italian prime minister, together with Takaichi-san, also in manga form. A photo that went viral on social media in a matter of hours. This was followed by what was a real coup: Giorgia Meloni together with mangaka Hara Tetsuo, holding a portrait of Kenshiro autographed by the artist as a birthday gift for the premier.
Giorgia Meloni has just blown out 49 candles. She is a representative of the ‘Grendizer Generation’, the Italian Generation X kids who were literally overwhelmed by the arrival of Japanese cartoons on Italian television during their childhood. For four decades, they were vilified and considered nerds, losers, unlike those who followed American superheroes or more “adult” (quotation marks obligatory) forms of mass distraction, such as soccer. Now, however, the extent to which that imprinting has weighed heavily is front-page news.
Savonarola against Grendizer
It has been 48 years since Silverio Corvisieri, a member of the Democrazia Proletaria party, formerly of the Avanguardia Operaia, editor of L’Unità and member of the RAI (State TV) Supervisory Commission, launched a tirade in parliament against the robotic anime Goldrake (Italian title for Nagai Go’s Grendizer). It was a form of Savonarolism, of almost McCarthyist moralism but of the opposite sign. In some way, from his Trotskyist left-wing point of view, Corvisieri had detected an intolerable ‘right-wing’ undertone in that science fiction saga. And with him were Dario Fo, Alberto Bevilacqua, and Togliatti’s widow, Nilde Iotti. As reported by the website Spazio70, there was no hesitation in defining this type of entertainment as fascist:
‘the spinning fist is equivalent to the iron fist; the space halberd to the bayonet; the piercing hammer to the truncheon […] Goldrake is the stage that can precede actual drugs’.
Silverio Corvisieri warned that Goldrake was a “cult of the Ubermensch,” a “principle of delegation” to a savior, and “hatred for those who are different.” Twenty years later, with unwavering persistence, Corvisieri confirmed his opinion in an interview with K Magazine: Goldrake was “undemocratic and extremely violent.”
Immediately after Goldrake, first Mazinger Z and then Captain Harlock arrived on Italian TV. The former sparked a veritable neo-McCarthyist hysteria, with a group of six hundred parents from Imola sending a protest petition to RAI and the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications: Japanese cartoons were “warmongering,” sending a ‘miseducational’ message in which science was at the “service of destruction”:
‘Certain children’s programs strike us with their use of science and technology, and even science fiction linked to war; increasingly modern tools at the service of a society dominated by feudal struggles and in the hands of a man who regresses, dominated by base instincts of greed and domination’.
Of course, it mattered little that the fundamental message of the robot series of the time was exactly the opposite.
Captain Harlock, in particular, the anarchist who lives as a free man aboard a spaceship, an outcast and an outlaw, but who decides to fight anyway to defend his Earth, ruled by a ridiculous, corrupt democracy fearful of an alien invasion, could not fail to attract yet another accusation of “fascism.” Especially at a time when, due to the cultural hegemony of the left, anything that was not class struggle was automatically considered “a “truncheon and castor oil”. Captain Harlock, dressed in black, with his gloomy pirate flag, made his appearance on RAI in the spring of 1979 for a few reruns, but was then withdrawn and moved to private TV stations.
A wasted opportunity for boomer parents
Until the Mammì Law of 1990, young Italians of Generation X were literally overwhelmed by the wave of Japanese anime, mostly amid the reproaches of parents and teachers: “uneducational,” “violent,” and indeed, “fascist.” A huge missed opportunity for dialogue between two generations. While the older generation entered the 1980s distracted by the Reaganomic boom and relaxed by the disengagement of post-70’s Terrorism years hedonism, the younger generation could have shared with their parents the immense amount of values that anime brought with them.
Instead, the boomer generation decided to focus on the “rocket punch” and tear-jerking scenes, ignoring everything else around them. That Captain Harlock was a patriot, a free man, a man of honor did not matter to any critic. It was “fascism.” Of the stories of young people (often orphans) from the “Meisaku Theater” from Heidi to Flone of the Mysterious Island, from Nobody’s Boy: Remi to My Patrasche, all taken from masterpieces of European children’s literature (including two from the De Amicis’ Heart), the adults of the time wanted to see only the tearful and depressing aspect, forgetting that it was all in the spirit of European children’s literature of the Belle Epoque.
With superficiality and presumption, the Grendizer Generation was practically abandoned by their parents, left alone in front of the TV. And for once that TV could have been a good teacher, they chose to demonize it.
The revenge of the nerds
But, as we know, kids grow up. And as they grow up, they finally find themselves enjoying a more substantial income than pocket money. So, starting in the mid-1990s, despite the long “crossing of the desert” after the Mammì law, anime and manga returned to populate the collective imagination, simply because the kids of the Grendizer Generation had become adults and, above all, a lucrative market sector.
And today, the Grendizer Generation has even come to power, as Giorgia Meloni demonstrated with her diplomatic trip to Japan. She found support in the Land of the Rising Sun with Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae, who, in addition to being a metalhead and motorcyclist, is also – like some other members of her cabinet who are openly otaku – a fan of anime and manga.
But it’s not just color and costume. It’s culture.
The depth of anime and manga
Compared to Western works, which until fairly recently were divided into pure entertainment and ‘intellectual’ comics, Japanese manga (comics) and anime (animation) have managed to combine a pop expressive system with content of great depth. Intellectual manga, mostly left-wing, is almost non-existent. Japanese mangaka have been able to combine the tastes of the public with the need to tell complex stories. This complexity was not appreciated at all during the golden decade of the Grendizer Generation in Italy.
The quotes from Corvisieri and other detractors of Japanese cartoons show a superficial approach. After all, once a phenomenon has been branded ‘fascist’, there is no need to explore it further. Few voices were raised in defense of Japanese cartoons at that time. Some did so out of a spirit of freedom or because they were fascinated—once again superficially—by the new medium, such as Gianni Rodari. Few, such as Gianfranco de Turris, realized the enormous ideal potential that the stories coming from Japan could express.
But are manga right-wing or left-wing?
And it is no coincidence that a great right-wing intellectual like de Turris was among the very few to grasp the value of Japanese production. Because – even if by mistake – Corvisieri was right in his contempt for anime. From his point of view, the point of view of someone who espoused cultural Marxism, all the values expressed by Japanese cartoons can only be ‘fascist’. Even the anarchism of the space pirate Captain Harlock, the sacrifice for peace of the pilots of the various “robots,” the peasant epic of little Heidi by Takahata and Miyazaki (at the time militants of the radical left).
It is precisely cultural Marxism’s aversion to values that makes the world of Japanese cartoons indigestible to the left, which only manages to come back in through the window when someone notices that in Miyazaki Hayao’s feature film Porco Rosso, set in Italy in 1927, the protagonist publicly professes anti-fascism. Which, more than anti-fascism, is a-fascism. And if we want to read between the lines of Miyazaki’s thinking, according to the average parameters of the right-left spectrum in Italy, we should classify him as part of the anarchic, Tolkienian eco-right of the 1970s, rather than any red fringe. Too many values dear to the “right” appear in Miyazaki’s works for him to be understood by the left: the need to fight for justice, courage, spirit of sacrifice, respect for the enemy (blasphemy!)… Porco Rosso says “better to be a pig than a fascist,” but at the beginning of the film, all the pilots who fell in the war ascend to Paradise, regardless of the insignia on their wings…
And the words of the ancestor of space pirate Harlock, a Luftwaffe pilot during World War II, in Arcadia of My Youth made thousands of viewers sit up and take notice:
Tochiro: “But why are you flying a plane with the Iron Cross?”
Phantom F. Harlock II: “Out of righteousness and gratitude to my nation, that’s why.”
After all, the author of Captain Harlock, Matsumoto Leiji, is also the creator of the science fiction saga known as Space Battleship Yamato, one of the most successful franchises in Japan. The protagonist is the magnificent super battleship Yamato, sunk in 1945 on a kamikaze mission and resurrected as a spaceship to save Earth from an alien invasion. The anime’s theme song is so iconic that it is often featured in the set lists of the Kaijō Jieitai band, the Self-Defense Forces, or the Japanese Navy.
And it couldn’t be otherwise: Space Battleship Yamato is a true manifesto of the right. It is a work in which patriotism blends with chivalry and respect for the enemy (an aspect that is even more pronounced in the 2015 remake, Yamato 2199), environmentalism, and warrior ethics.
And it is precisely warrior ethics that are at the heart of the Kenshiro saga (Hokuto no Ken, by Buronson and Hara Tetsuo), whose portrait was Giorgia Meloni’s birthday gift. An epic saga, set in a post-apocalyptic future inspired by Mad Max, dominated by clashes between martial arts schools. World domination, freedom, love, courage, and justice are the themes of a story that some have compared to a contemporary Iliad. Extremely violent, the animated series arrived in Italy in 1987 under the title “Ken il Guerriero” (Fist of the North Star), sparking a new wave of neo-McCarthyism, with some journalists associating the anime with the sad trend of throwing stones from overpasses. In reality, the depth of all its characters, including the villains, makes “Kenshiro” a work in which every traditional value can be found, even in contradictions: the superhuman tension of Raoh, Kenshiro’s older brother, determined to conquer the world with his superhuman strength to impose peace; the sacrifices made by the warriors of the rival school of Nanto to prevent Raoh’s imperial plan; and the pietas of the protagonist, willing to make any sacrifice to respect the destiny that has been assigned to him, in the name of justice.
In a crescendo of tension and warrior epic, “Hokuto no Ken” has become one of Japan’s most iconic cultural products in recent decades. So much so that Meloni herself, after meeting Hara, was able to declare that “Hokuto no Ken has marked the growth of entire generations of Italians, becoming part of our nation’s collective imagination.”
The return of traditionalism in Japan
Over the last decade, several products from the manga and anime industry in Japan seem to have rediscovered tradition and even broken the taboo on World War II. After defeat, in fact, the unspoken fate of post-1945 Japan was largely sublimated in fantasy works: Japanese cities were destroyed by space monsters and defended by heroic young people piloting jewels of Japanese technology. In short, Japan saved the world by sacrificing itself for all humanity (wasn’t this the message that the Emperor had sent to his subjects when he announced the surrender on August 15, 1945?). Several works had addressed the theme of war and defeat, such as Gen of Hiroshima by Keiji Nakazawa and Grave of the Fireflies by Isao Takahata, but with a vein of criticism more directed towards their own people and their small human miseries than towards the Americans who had dropped atomic and incendiary bombs on the cities of the archipelago.
Historical manga—a very popular genre—preferred themes set further back in the past: from the Edo period (such as Shirato Sanpei’s ninja stories) to the Meiji period. Very few were willing to confront a past that was, after all, very present for the authors and many of the readers. Moreover, in the postwar period, the American occupation sought to erase any hint of nationalism. Disney-style cartoons and left-wing cartoons such as those by Tezuka Osamu were perfect for promoting pacifism and anti-militarism.
But recently, the tide seems to have turned: many anime and manga authors are now addressing the themes of World War II, defeat, and the American occupation, as well as the violence and abuse suffered by the Japanese at the hands of US troops. In addition, several feature films that have also been released in our cinemas have shown a desire to reconnect with the Shōwa era. Even Miyazaki, who has always been highly critical of the Japanese militarism that led to the war, has admitted that if he had been born earlier, he would most likely have ended up working for imperial propaganda. This admission goes hand in hand with the poignant nostalgia that shines through in his most recent cartoons, which depict a world where glass and plastic have not yet replaced rice paper panels and pagoda roofs.
After years of crisis and nihilism, perfectly represented in Anno Hideaki’s Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), in which the protagonist is an anti-hero, depressed, low-T guy, thrown against his will into the world that every Japanese (and non-Japanese) boy would always have dreamed of – namely, piloting a giant robot to save humanity, surrounded by beautiful girls – Japan now seems to want to try to give itself a boost by picking up where it left off. And with the broad shoulders of an adult, three-dimensional production like Japan’s, it can even afford revisionism: in Yamato 2199, the original metaphor of Earth destroyed by the invader’s atomic bombs and defended by the Japanese battleship is joined by the doubt that perhaps the war was started by the Earthlings, and not the aliens of Gamilas.
But even if that is the case, right or wrong, it’s my country…
If manga gets political
Now a global phenomenon, anime and manga also have a political side. Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is Casapound’s use of the aforementioned Captain Harlock. But there are manifestations of much greater magnitude.
For months, another pirate flag, that of the One Piece series, has been raised as a banner of protest across half the world: it started in Indonesia, then Nepal, the Philippines, and France. Oda Eiichiro’s manga and anime—the most commercially successful product in the history of these media and soon to surpass even the sales of its American superhero competitors—has become a symbol of rebellion against power. Just as the pirates of One Piece oppose the World Government Navy, symbol of the established order, so the rebels, mostly belonging to Generation X, have chosen to frame their protests.
More recently, Keit Starmer’s government propaganda game, Pathways, backfired spectacularly when the “evil teacher” who was supposed to “lead astray” players, leading them towards “extremism,” the goth girl Amelia, quickly became a viral meme on the internet.
Instead of being detested as a bearer of “bad ideas” (nationalism, ethnocentrism, traditionalism, anti-immigration, etc.), Amelia has become the waifu (a Japanese term for “wife,” or a virtual “ideal girlfriend”) of millions of young nationalists in Britain and around the world. And in this context, we are interested in how her original representation, particularly miserable from a graphic point of view (in the style of Peppa Pig, to be clear), was immediately transformed by the internet, obviously into an anime/manga version. The dark manga girl has thus become another banner raised against Downing Street’s propaganda, thanks in part to the fact that her dominant color—purple, typical of cartoon “villains”—is that of the UKIP party and is traditionally linked to British and Scottish heraldry.
And in the end, Starmer’s propaganda offices had to throw in the towel…
And so the circle is complete, with Silverio Corvisieri able to say, ‘See? I told you so!’.