Hmm… There’s a number of directions that this question can be taken in, depending on whether you’re including movies and whether you’re including non-Japanese anime-inspired animation as anime. Because anime-style shows or movies taking place in the Russian Civil War or Chinese Civil War would be awesome, but I’d rather have those stories actually be told by Russian or Chinese animation studios. Not that Japanese animation studios can’t cover non-Japanese history, or that there aren’t plenty of Russian or Chinese people working in the anime industry in Japan, it just seems better to me for these stories to be told by the countries or peoples that experienced them. Especially if it’s something like the Haitian Revolution: for non-Haitians to tell that story and profit off of it would be exploitative, right? Yet Haiti doesn’t exactly have a developed animation industry of its own. If it did, then that would be an obvious top contender. Likewise, you could absolutely make an anime miniseries about the life of David Hamilton Jackson of the US Virgin Islands. I can absolutely imagine that, him growing up hearing about the Three Queens, the story of his radicalization, his meetings and disillusionment with the King of Denmark and other prominent figures in the metropole, all of that.
I also remember thinking while watching the Norwegian Sámi miniseries Ante from the 1970s that it had slice of life anime vibes.
Now, if the premise is limited to Japanese animation only, then the Sanrizuka Struggle is an obvious top choice. It’s a very prominent part of Japanese leftist history, and there’s a manga about it ready to be adapted, Boku no Mura no Hanashi (Story of My Village).
Hmm… There’s a number of directions that this question can be taken in, depending on whether you’re including movies and whether you’re including non-Japanese anime-inspired animation as anime. Because anime-style shows or movies taking place in the Russian Civil War or Chinese Civil War would be awesome, but I’d rather have those stories actually be told by Russian or Chinese animation studios. Not that Japanese animation studios can’t cover non-Japanese history, or that there aren’t plenty of Russian or Chinese people working in the anime industry in Japan, it just seems better to me for these stories to be told by the countries or peoples that experienced them. Especially if it’s something like the Haitian Revolution: for non-Haitians to tell that story and profit off of it would be exploitative, right? Yet Haiti doesn’t exactly have a developed animation industry of its own. If it did, then that would be an obvious top contender. Likewise, you could absolutely make an anime miniseries about the life of David Hamilton Jackson of the US Virgin Islands. I can absolutely imagine that, him growing up hearing about the Three Queens, the story of his radicalization, his meetings and disillusionment with the King of Denmark and other prominent figures in the metropole, all of that.
I also remember thinking while watching the Norwegian Sámi miniseries Ante from the 1970s that it had slice of life anime vibes.
Now, if the premise is limited to Japanese animation only, then the Sanrizuka Struggle is an obvious top choice. It’s a very prominent part of Japanese leftist history, and there’s a manga about it ready to be adapted, Boku no Mura no Hanashi (Story of My Village).