I figli della Bomba. Figure della corporeità post-atomica nella cultura visuale giapponese

The historical trauma of Hiroshima and Nagasaki deeply shocked Japan, and its phantom is still present nowadays in various productions of Japanese visual culture. Following the example of the exhibition Little Boy curated by the artist Murakami Takashi, this essay will analyse the problematic relationship between the memory of Hiroshima and the human body. In this context, the role played by technology is fundamental, as the three proposed models of post-atomic body will try to specify. The protected body, for example, implies a positive conception of the technological element, which becomes a sort of protective shell (as demonstrated by several robotic anime such as Mazinga Z, Mobile Suit Gundam and Evangelion). The second proposed model is called grafted body (Tetsuo) and suggests a more complex and less optimistic vision of technology: here, the mechanical element can violate and penetrate the human flesh, even replace it. Finally, the model of the mutated body (Godzilla, Akira) reminds us of the atomic radiation and the biological mutations suffered by the victims of the bomb.