La rappresentazione della Seconda guerra mondiale e la conservazione della memoria nel disegno animato giapponese

The article focuses on the representations of World War II in the so-called anime, the Japanese animated drawing for television or cinema, and their role in shaping the collective imagination of the national past. The methodological approach adopted pays great attention to the historical, political and socio-cultural context. In Japan it is the anime - along with the local comic strip, with which it maintains a close relationship - the means of expression through which it is possible to grasp, understand, more clearly how society perceives and wishes to represent the Second World War. Japanese productions with animated drawings are followed - not only in the homeland - by a very large audience and, although often describing the war in metaphorical, indirect form, manage to reveal the emotions aroused in the population by the recovery of memory. In our opinion, in short, anime portrays in an exemplary way the Japanese social and cultural scenario of the historical period on which the analysis is focused, and help to reflect in depth on this scenario. Our main theses, namely that the anime representation contributes, on the one hand, to renew or even to redefine, to “modify” the memory of decisive events, such as in this case the Second World War and, on the other hand, makes us understand the need to preserve memory in order to reclaim the past and thus be able to build an authentic cultural identity.