Carl Macek

• 1. Introduction

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  Carl Frank Macek was an American screenwriter and producer. His adaptations of Japanese anime, made across the 1980s and 1990s, are credited with building mainstream American awareness of Japanese animation. He created a franchise called Robotech and later helped launch a company built entirely around bringing imported anime to American screens. While working at Harmony Gold, he also produced Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years. The film is little-known and rarely-seen, and it splices together the almost-unrelated stories of Space Pirate Captain Harlock and Queen Millennia. That willingness to combine, edit, and rewrite imported material would follow him for the rest of his career. What exactly did Macek change in the anime he brought to the United States, and why do fans still argue about it decades later?

• 2. Creating Robotech

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  In 1985, Harmony Gold USA put Macek in charge of Robotech as both producer and story editor. Robotech is considered one of the titles most responsible for igniting anime fandom, both in North America and internationally. Macek planned a sequel called Robotech II: The Sentinels, but the project was canceled. That cancellation did not end Macek's involvement with the story of the Sentinels, though its return would take a very different form.

• 3. Founding Streamline Pictures

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  In 1988, Macek co-founded Streamline Pictures with Jerry Beck, a company built around distributing imported Japanese animation in the United States. Steve Kramer, Tom Wyner, Gregory Snegoff, and Ardwight Chamberlain joined the new company. All four were writers who had worked with him on Robotech, and each was also an experienced voice actor. Streamline became one of the first American companies to successfully deal in the regular production of imported Japanese animation. Among the titles the company released were Lensman, Robot Carnival, Doomed Megalopolis, Twilight of the Cockroaches, and Crying Freeman. Streamline also released Wicked City, a Fist of the North Star film, Akira, and Lupin the 3rd: The Mystery of Mamo. The company also produced the original English dub versions of four Hayao Miyazaki films. Those included Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, and Kiki's Delivery Service. By 1993, Streamline distributed its anime through Orion Home Video, and Orion purchased the company outright in 1996.

• 4. Beyond Robotech

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  Before his death, Macek worked as a scriptwriter on the English dub of Naruto and Bleach for Viz Media. He was also consulting for Harmony Gold on Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles at the same time. Years earlier, in 1979, Macek had co-edited Film Noir, An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style. He later contributed to McGill's Survey of the Cinema. Macek also wrote two books of his own, The Art of Heavy Metal: Animation for the Eighties and Robotech Art 3: The Sentinels. In the second book, he chronicled in detail the conception of the Sentinels project and what went wrong during its production. He also wrote scripts for the animated series C.O.P.S. and served as executive consultant on the animated film Heavy Metal 2000. He wrote the animated adaptation of Brian Pulido's Lady Death as well. In 2008, Macek adapted a treatment by Merian C. Cooper, the producer of King Kong, for the unproduced film project War Eagles. He turned it into both a novel and a screenplay. The book reached shelves in the summer of 2008, published by Angelgate Press, one of the final credits Macek would add before his death.

• 5. A Divisive Legacy

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  Streamline Pictures-dubbed anime were among the first Japanese animation available on home video and on cable broadcasts. That reach came with a cost. Macek's edits, rewrites, and mash-ups, particularly on The Robotech Saga, angered many fans of the original Japanese titles. Those same choices made him one of the most controversial figures in English-language anime fandom. To this day, fans remain split between appreciation for what he brought to the United States and scorn for how he changed it. That divide outlived him.

• 6. Death

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  Jerry Beck, one of Macek's former business partners, revealed that Macek died of a heart attack on Saturday, the 17th of April, 2010. Barely three months before his death, Macek had recorded a two-and-a-half-hour podcast interview with Anime News Network, an extensive retrospective on his entire career. His obituary in the Los Angeles Times placed the location of his death in Topanga Canyon. It ran alongside a photograph of Macek surrounded by Robotech characters from all three series. After his death, a short documentary called Carl Macek's Robotech Universe was produced.