Le Sigle dei Cartoni: How Italian Cartoon Theme Songs Became a Cultural Institution

In Japan, the theme songs for anime like Goldrake, Candy Candy, Mazinga and Lady Oscar were one thing. In Italy, they became something entirely different. Italian broadcasters and production companies did not simply translate the Japanese lyrics — they commissioned entirely new Italian songs, new arrangements, and new recordings by Italian artists. The result was a body of music that shaped the emotional life of an entire generation. To this day, play any Italian sigla dei cartoni animati at a party of people over 35, and the room will sing along.

The golden era of Italian cartoon theme songs ran roughly from 1977 to 1995, coinciding with the explosion of Japanese anime on Italian television. The composer most associated with this era is Vince Tempera, who wrote the iconic Italian theme for Goldrake (Atlas Ufo Robot) and dozens of others. But there were many others: Ares Tavolazzi, Giorgio Vanni, Massimo Longhi, and various house composers working for the production companies that dubbed and distributed anime in Italy. The songs were genuine pop productions — full orchestral arrangements, professional singers, catchy melodies that lodged themselves permanently in the brain.

What made the Italian sigle extraordinary was the quality of the Italian lyrics. Rather than simply describing the action ('he fights the monsters with his giant robot'), the best sigle were genuinely poetic — they captured the emotional atmosphere of the show, dealt with themes of friendship, courage, sacrifice, and longing, and used the Italian language musically and imaginatively. The sigla for Candy Candy (a Japanese shoujo anime about an orphan girl in early twentieth-century America) became one of the most beloved children's songs in Italian history, with a genuine emotional depth that the original Japanese version did not have. Italians who watched these shows as children often remember the Italian theme songs more vividly than anything else about the shows.

The production of Italian sigle involved a fascinating collaboration between Japanese animation studios and Italian music industry professionals. The Japanese studios delivered the animation and their original music; the Italian production houses — notably Yoshida Bros., Rai, and Fininvest/Mediaset companies — hired composers to create entirely new scores and songs. Some of these songs were so successful that they outsold the Japanese originals in terms of cultural longevity. Today there are dedicated concerts, compilation albums, and fan communities devoted entirely to the Italian sigle dei cartoni, playing to sold-out theatres.