Italy has long been an enthusiastic market for contemporary Japanese pop culture. Anime was first imported in the late 1970s and has since become a cultural sensation with generational impact.

¡°At an early age, I was already watching anime every day,¡± says translator Simona Stanzani, recalling the wave of Japanese media that transformed her youth.

Stanzani is a leading translator of manga into both Italian and English, and has worked on major titles including ¡°Jojo¡¯s Bizarre Adventure,¡± ¡°Chainsaw Man¡± and ¡°Spy ¡Á Family,¡± in addition to subtitling films such as Akira Kurosawa¡¯s ¡°The Seven Samurai.¡±?

Along with Stanzani, comic artist Luca Tieri is another Tokyo-based Italian in the creative industries. He is an illustrator active in both Italy and Japan who has had solo exhibitions in Tokyo and Los Angeles and is currently working on a manga of his own.

The two are among a network of translators, artists and creators whose projects shine a light on vibrant ties between the two countries in the cultural sector.

In the 1970s and ¡¯80s, classic anime series like ¡°UFO Robot Grendizer¡± and ¡°Captain Harlock¡± introduced young Italian audiences to something entirely new: complex narratives, morally ambiguous characters and emotional depth.

¡°There was war, death, sadness,¡± Stanzani says. ¡°Things you don¡¯t see in shows for kids.¡±

Italy already had a strong comics tradition and publications often printed American and French works alongside homegrown talent. Marvel and Disney were popular as well as European titles featuring characters like Tintin and Lucky Luke.

That familiarity with the illustrated medium made audiences especially receptive to Japanese imports. Anime simply ¡°captured an age bracket that wasn¡¯t represented before ¡ª something between children and adults,¡± Stanzani says.

Growing up in Bologna during the first anime boom, Stanzani was immersed in a wide range of international comics, including anime and manga, from a young age.

Inspired by her mother¡¯s fashion illustration career, she developed a fascination with drawing and visual storytelling and dreamed of becoming a manga artist herself.

Stanzani began learning Japanese at the University of Bologna and took on her first manga translation job in 1992. She later received her master¡¯s in communication design at the University of the Arts London ¡ª a step that helped lay the foundation for a career bridging multiple disciplines and countries.?

A resident of Tokyo since 2007, Stanzani works with clients including localization companies in Japan as well as major Italian publishers such as Panini Comics and Edizioni Star Comics.

¡°Translating manga is translating culture,¡± she says.

One of the biggest challenges in translation lies in the structural differences between languages. Japanese often leaves key details ambiguous ¡ª gender, singular versus plural, even subject ¡ª while Italian requires...