Thanks to all for your welcome!
ilmaestro said:
I'm sure many of us wish we'd had the sort of anime on TV in the UK that other European countries had all those years ago, would be very interested to hear more about what you got to watch when you were younger.
I think Italy was the Western country that broadcasted more anime in the period around 1978 to 1985. There were a good amount of shows on the national TV channels (RAI), and a lot on the private channels (both national and regional). The first I recall watching was Chiisana Viking Vickie, then started the "invasion" of mechas and romances. At the time buying the rights to broadcast anime series was really cheap, because the Japanese did not think Western people could appreciate them, so Italian televisions took advantage and bought a lot of series, since they got a good success with children. This lead to many problems due to the usual Italian way of thinking. Most of the adaptation was total crap (4-5 people dubbing all the characters, names changed, dialogues totally different from the original, a lot of censorship). Some private TVs even broadcasted some series without buying the rights. For example Gundam 0079 was broadcasted in 1980 without paying the rights and butchering it (for example, Amuro Ray was called Peter Ray). When Sunrise discovered what happened, they ostracized Italy for about 20 years (no more Gundam until few years ago). Facts like this one, added to the Japanese studios understanding they could charge much more money, ended to a "crisis" after 1985, much less anime were bought. But the three national TVs owned by Berlusconi went on broadcasting series, the problem is that the managing staff was quite dumb and thought that a lot of scenes were not good for Italia children (too extreme, too different about culture), so they cut an insanely amount of scenes. For example if you watched Kimagure Orange Road then it was almost impossible to understand what was going on, too much scenes missing. In the '90s there were much less series in number, but there were many huge hits, like Fist Of The North Star (this was really BIG here, I think it has been broadcasted more than 20 times), Saint Seiya, Dragonball, City Hunter, Evangelion... Don't know what happened in the 2000's since I stopped watching anime.
During the first "anime invasion" mechas were a great hit here, all of us kids adored shows like Koutetsu Jeeg, UFO Robo Grendizer and God Mazinger (these three were the biggest hits), but there were a lot of mecha series (Daitarn III, Space Warrior Baldios, Mirai Robo Daltanius, Getter Robo, Daikuu Maryuu Gaiking... really a lot, I think we got the vast majority of mechas from that period).
Romance series had really good success, like Lady Georgie, Nobody's Boy Remi, Candy Candy, Alps no Shoujo Heidi, Akage no Anne, Rose of Versailles...
Other big hits were Future Boy Conan, Lupin III, Uchuu Senkan Yamato, Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Urusei Yatsura, Cat's Eyes. But really we were flooded by anime in those years. I recall that in 1990 some friends and I tried to write down all the anime we watched, and we collected more than 250 titles.
The fact that anime got such a big success in the '80s means that a lot of people that were children at that time (like me) are now nostalgic and want to see again those series, so there are some publishers that released almost all those series on DVD. Prices are more expensive than UK or US, but at least we can find almost all those series. For example I know that the English version of Cat's Eyes is really difficult and expensive to find, here it's still in print and at standard price. On the contrary, we have really few choices regarding DVDs of anime series from the '90s or 2000's, that's why I'm following some foreign forums like this one, and started buying UK and US releases (much cheaper, and much bigger choice).
devilrules666 said:
What other stuff are you into?
My favourite series from the '80s are Future Boy Conan and Lupin III (first series, green jacket). Some time ago a lot friends of mine almost forced me to watch Death Note, I loved it and started to watch anime again. Other series I watched in the last couple of years and really liked are: Code Geass, Lain, Mushishi, GTO, Haibane Renmei, all the UC Gundam, Higashi no Eden, Noein... I also loved many movies: Satoshi Kon's (especially Millennium Actress), most of Ghibli, Jin Roh, Sword Of The Stranger... But there are a boatload of shows I still have to catch up watching.
Now I'm watching Evangelion. I'm sure I watched it in the '90s, but I almost forgot everything, so it's just like watching it for the first time.
Teo
