The anime crazy in Italy started in April 1979 with Grendizer (Goldrake). I read somewhere once that such cartoons were so alien to Western culture, they had a little presentation before the episode aired, explaning a bit the anime amd manga phenomenon in Japan. It proved crazily popular among Italian boys. The theme tune was a chart hit, selling about a million copies. Other robot shows like Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger quickly followed. Many of them were snapped up by regional TV stations; I suspect they were quite cheap to buy from the Japanese. When I was a kid growing up in the early 80s, anime was all you could watch, or almost. They also had American stuff like MOTU and MASK, but that was always much more peripheral.
Best thing was, the regional channels never bothered censoring anything, back then. So you'd see Tiger Mask being poked in his eyes, eye white flying, head repeatedly hit with the bell, etc etc. It was hugely entertaining, but also educational in a way, in the sense that many of those plots were quite adult by childrens standards.
Regarding the collecting pat, I presume people will collect toys based on the stuff they watch. American kids collected He Man. Italian kids collected Daitarn III stuff.
Also, please note that France had Grendizer a year earlier (in fact the Italian version stuck to the French naming conventions, for the main characters). I'm not as familiar with the Franco scene as I am with the Italian one, but I suspect anime was massive here too, judging by the DVDs and Blurays I see them selling there.
First post, long time lurker, by the way. Hi.
I always forget you can rate a thread
