I just found out this morning.

Had it not been for Carl Macek , Anime, the way we see it today might look quite different. Love him or hate him, he brought The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, The Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA to the US, hacked them together to make Robotech. I was a child of the 1980's and remember Robotech fondly and even have both Robotech and those three series on my shelves. It was partially because once I found out Robotech was this thing called anime, I had a friend in middle school, who also got me into reading comic books, to import the 2 episode per VHS tapes of Macross. I was hooked and so were kids across America. Once Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon came to the US, it came on the back of Robotech playing on Sci-Fi and Cartoon Network. Robotech created an entire generation of schoolkids fascinated by anime.

Robotech was his first foray into bringing anime into the US. He also brought over Lensman, Robot Carnival, Doomed Megalopolis, Twilight of the Cockroaches, Crying Freeman, Wicked City, and the original English dub versions of Hayao Miyazaki’s Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Fist of the North Star, Akira, Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro through his Streamline distribution. He was working as a scriptwriter for the English dub of Bleach for Viz Media, and consulting for Harmony Gold on Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles before his passing.

Because I've worked conventions so often, I had several opportunities to meet the man and you'd be hard pressed to find another person who loved anime as much he did. Whenever he was asked about how fans were angry about editing 3 series into one and changing entire storylines and you know what? He said if given the choice, he wouldn't have had it any other way. His idea of using the "by any means necessary" approach to drag America kicking and screaming into the world of anime and if it meant caving to producers wanting "something original" then he'd did whatever it took. If you were raised watching anime on Sci-Fi as a kid and running to Blockbuster to find more, Carl Macek was the reason. I thank him greatly and hold him in the highest of respect. He will be greatly missed and the world of anime one less.

Average user rating

   (1 vote)

Display 1 of 1 comments