Carl Macek

Carl Macek is an American writer and anime producer of the 1980s and 1990s.

Carl Macek came to public attention in 1985 as the executive producer of the influential animated television series Robotech, which he produced for Harmony Gold USA. Robotech is one of the titles most responsible for igniting anime fandom in North America and internationally. Macek intended to produce a sequel to Robotech, Robotech II: The Sentinels, but this project was cancelled due to a number of circumstances. While at Harmony Gold, Macek also produced the little known, rarely seen Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years (which combines the stories of Space Pirate Captain Harlock and Queen Millennia).

Macek went on to found Streamline Pictures in 1988. Joining him were writers who had worked with him on Robotech, most notably, Steve Kramer, Tom Wyner, Greg Snegoff and Ardwight Chamberlain, each of whom are also experienced voice actors. Streamline Pictures is one of the first American companies to successfully deal in the regular production of imported Japanese animation. Among the titles released by Streamline are 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, Akira, Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro, and Lupin III: Mystery of Mamo.

Carl Macek became one of the most controversial figures during the second and third waves of English anime fandom. Many consider him one of the early pioneers of the medium outside of Japan. Streamline Pictures dubbed anime were among the first to be available on home video as well as broadcast on cable. Streamline also released a wide variety of anime titles that were different from each other. There is, however, a large portion of the anime fandom that still regards Carl Macek negatively for heavily altering the original Japanese versions of many of these titles. In particular, Robotech, which consists of three originally unrelated anime rewritten to tell a continuous storyline (Macross, Southern Cross, Mospeada). For this, some in anime fandom called him "Antichrist" (http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?q=Carl+Macek+antichrist). So intense was this hatred that some anime fans have reportedly sent him death threats and blacklisted him from appearing at anime conventions.

Carl Macek and Streamline Pictures initially released only dubbed anime and remains the only major anime distributor ever to do so. He believed that in order for anime to reach a general audience, it had to be dubbed. A significant portion of the anime fandom watches exclusively subtitled anime and many actively boycotted Streamline. (Streamline Pictures later released a subtitled home video version of Akira, which became Streamline Pictures' own subtitled release.)

Proponents note that Robotech was created the way it was in order to meet the 65+ episode guideline for TV daily syndication at the time. (Weekly syndication requires less episodes.) In many of the titles he produced, Macek changed dialogue to remove what he called "ethnic gestures". Many of the earlier titles were in science fiction or other genres where the setting was ethnically neutral and these slight changes did not significantly affect the integrity of the script. Compared to earlier years, anime's ethnicity has become more accepted.

The process of heavily revising translated anime scripts to appeal to a Western audience has been derisively nicknamed the "macekre" (by analogy to massacre).

Streamline Pictures was purchased by Orion Pictures in the early '90s and is now defunct.

Carl Macek is also the author of The Art of Heavy Metal: Animation for the Eighties and Robotech Art III: The Sentinels in which he chronicles in detail the conception and background of the aborted animated series.

Carl Macek has also worked as a script writer for the animated series C.O.P.S. and was the executive consultant for the animated film Heavy Metal Fakk2 (Heavy Metal 2000).

He was once interviewed on Point of View by Derwood Rowell for the American Channel 11 network.

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