The incredible world of old Italian Anime openings

[Sonic Boomer]

Although I'm not Italian, in the early late 80's and early 90's we'd get Itailian TV here through Satellite TV. Rai Uno and some other stuff, so I grew up watching a ton of Italian cartoons. I could understand some back then (can't understand jack now) and my grandpa, who was fluent in multiple languages, including Italian would translate some of the cartoons for me.

What struck me as unique and special back then were all these wonderfully drawn "Italian" cartoons.
Little did I know that those were actually Japanese cartoons, we assumed they were Italian and my grandpa would tell me how Italians are great artists and point out all the unique and amazing details in the art for me.

It wouldn't be until years later that I'd learn that some of the most fascinating cartoons of my childhood were actually Japanese

One of the most memorable things about these unique, special, mysterious Italian cartoons that were so diffierent from the usual stuff I'd consume on UK Satellite TV like TMNT, Wheel Warriors, Thundercats and Transformers, were their opening and ending songs.
They were amazing, even if I found the cartoons themselves rather difficult to follow, after all most were slice of life animes :)

The Trapp Family opening still sticks with me to this day and the anime itself is absolutely incredible

E' quasi magia Johnny, as a kid I adored the opening but the cartoon wasn't overly entertaining, except when JOHNNY would use his powers, but later, Kimagure Orange Road would become one of my favorite animes of all time :)
The Italian opening I still remember to this day

My grandpa LOVED Lupin III so I remember the opening well, he was a fan of the original Lupin in general and he thought the Italian Lupin III was a masterpiece :)

Tho I never cared to watch it, this anime always had such a lovely opening, Mila e Shiro. I've never seen the original anime either because it looks like a sports thing

I will add a bonus tho, not an anime but one of my favorite cartoons as a kid, that my grandpa would help translate
Destiny's Twins had an absolutely incredible Italian opening, better than its original opening, it's one of the best cartoons openings I've seen and heard

 

[contrail_]

I remember when I first discovered anime back in the 90s, my dad was fully convinced that it's italian animation.

 

[Mal]

thats nice, honestly the world of dubs in opening is a treasure troove of so many cool bits of history, you can hear all of this italian opening and while yeah same language and i think singer? it really embodied a vibe of the time and place it was made.

english opening also have its very clear different mood where they are trying to be epic! and all, for example.

a funny memorie for me was with an expecific anime called saint seiya, it aired in two tv programs at the time, both in spanish but one dubbed in mexico and the other dubbed in spain and just look at the opening difference here haha.

this is the europe one and its really gives me this flag hymn vibe to it:

and this is the mexica one, which is just the japanese openning fully dubbed also rad they did this back then:

 

[PSVitaForever]

Look on youtube for "Cristina D'Avena sigle cartoni animati" (it means "opening songs" and Cristina D'Avena is the singer's name, since they are italian it's better to look in that language), maybe you'll discover more! They are awesome even without fully understanding the lyrics.

 

[FlyingToaster]

My childhood. A shame this era died sometime in the 2010s and custom italian openings like these just aren't common anymore

 

[GeoHikari]

Outside Japan, Italy is a country who respect the japanese culture on television besides his tradition of crowd programs plus soccer broadcastings(remember: Soccer it's a Italy's national sport like here in Brazil).

UFO Robot Grendizer become a cultural impact in italian television in 1979, showing a new type of kids TV series(for the country) as common american cartoons are still made less interest for stations in his particular kids programs. With Grendizer, who in the country are broadcasted as Atlas UFO Robot Goldrake, anime series started to be part of kids trends in italian society, and various local distributors brought more and more Super Robots animes, as well other types of animes. Today, italian TV is still broadcasting animes, besides the majority of new series are those on the american format for streaming services.

Grendizer also started on the italian fonografic market the high interest of making exclusive opening and ending themes specially for animes. In my opinion, few italian openings are better than the original japanese versions, such the openings of Uchuu Kishi Tekkaman and Chou Supercar Gattiger.

 

[Z77]

The Italian Daitarn 3 opening is awesome.

 

[Fietto!]

 

[ricc]

We actually still listen to them sometimes since they are very nostalgic for a lot of people! Some bars or club organize parties with "80s cartoons opening themes" and put the italian openings of Sailor moon, mazinga, saint seiya, jeeg, grendizer (in italy goldrake), lupin, detective conan, dragon ball, daitarn instead of dance music. Also there are some cover bands that do concert of cover of these openings.

Even between gen z a lot of people remeber these cartoons because when we were kids the vhs of these cartoons were sold on the second hand market for cheap or simply passed on from our parents (i used to watch mazinga on repeat and rewatch mazinga vs goldrake before going to bed)

Still today the national television has the rights to the italian version of these cartoons and put them during the night in the kids channels, also goldrake is free to stream because is so loved

(5.6M views)

 

[Scotty Scotty]

Look on youtube for "Cristina D'Avena sigle cartoni animati" (it means "opening songs" and Cristina D'Avena is the singer's name, since they are italian it's better to look in that language), maybe you'll discover more! They are awesome even without fully understanding the lyrics.

"Miracle Girls" MENTIONED!!

Also, Christina D'Avena is a very talented singer. Pretty much every Italian OP of hers I've encountered sounds amazing.

 

[Strategist Strategist]

It is amazing how pretty much every country had better Anime dubs than what most American Anime companies put out. I grew up with Mexican/LatAm dubs for Dragonball Z, Tekkaman Blade, Samurai X and my family had cable too, so I could compare it to the Toonami versions. I usually preferred the LatAm dubs, the American dubs had so many amateurs with no skill whereas the Mexican dubs had veterans who were experts in voice acting. The only problem is that you'd recognize the same 10 actors in every dubbed Spanish show lol.

 

[MDGeistsfavMC5song]

The Italian Daitarn 3 opening is awesome.

yeah that is amazing... but if I was an Italian in the early to mid 80's Id assume those characters were Italian.. they got that swagger.. hell, main man is wearing flares! I adore it! I had the same issue in the mid 80's, Id go to Blockbuster with my dad and he'd rent anything for me animated, including the anime... hell, he also bought me a five dollar copy of Fantastic Planet (Le Planet Sauvage) about the humans called Oms and their alien overlords called Draags... messed up stuff happened in that vhs... it was a crazy watch with an old hard workin 'murican dad... he kept leaving for a beer and Im sure a "what the fuck did I buy this kid?!"

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I adore Galaxy Express 999.. i dont know about the italian version

 

[GeoHikari]

The Italian Daitarn 3 opening is awesome.

On the same root of impact of the brazilian opening of 1986 Super Sentai installment Choushinsei Flashman.

 

[MDGeistsfavMC5song]

It is amazing how pretty much every country had better Anime dubs than what most American Anime companies put out. I grew up with Mexican/LatAm dubs for Dragonball Z, Tekkaman Blade, Samurai X and my family had cable too, so I could compare it to the Toonami versions. I usually preferred the LatAm dubs, the American dubs had so many amateurs with no skill whereas the Mexican dubs had veterans who were experts in voice acting. The only problem is that you'd recognize the same 10 actors in every dubbed Spanish show lol.

actually the American dub of Samurai X/ Rurouni Kenshin was fantastic.. its back when they hired people who gave a shit.. like Trigun, Gungrave, Cwboy Bebob, Vampire Hunter D, Last Exile, Blue Seed, Eva, Fairy Tail, Inuyasha (shit thats canadian), Silent Mobius (half American and canadian), Boogie Pop Phantom, Samurai Champloo etc I could go on.. as someone who almost exclusively watches new stuff subbed, I will never deny the greatness of that era of American english dubs

 

[Sonic Boomer]

Look on youtube for "Cristina D'Avena sigle cartoni animati" (it means "opening songs" and Cristina D'Avena is the singer's name, since they are italian it's better to look in that language), maybe you'll discover more! They are awesome even without fully understanding the lyrics.

yes I know her, I've seen them all :) I just left some for others to share and you posted some awesome stuff indeed :D

Post automatically merged: May 18, 2026

It is amazing how pretty much every country had better Anime dubs than what most American Anime companies put out. I grew up with Mexican/LatAm dubs for Dragonball Z, Tekkaman Blade, Samurai X and my family had cable too, so I could compare it to the Toonami versions. I usually preferred the LatAm dubs, the American dubs had so many amateurs with no skill whereas the Mexican dubs had veterans who were experts in voice acting. The only problem is that you'd recognize the same 10 actors in every dubbed Spanish show lol.

Macedonia had the worst dubs
every character was a guy in our Yu Gi Oh dub
Macedonian dubs are such complete and utter garbage to this day :)

 

[gigimaivista]

In the early 00s we still used antennas in my house so most of the time, our family simply watched Italian programs because we preferred it over the local ones. That's how I learned a good bit of Italian in my youth along with getting to watch plenty of great shows.

Jeeg always had my favourite opening in Italian, along with Lupin III of course.