A Brief Encounter with Anime Pioneer Carl Macek

As an anime fan, what do you say to Carl Macek-one of the forefathers who helped raise a serious interest in anime for North America? Being an anime fan who happened to meet Mr. Macek during Animation on Display 2010 in January, the first thing I said was, "Hi."

Carl Macek's main break into bringing anime into North American audiences was in the form of the animated series Robotech that Harmony Gold USA produced.It was adapted from three different anime series: The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, The Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber MOSPEADA. Through his founded company Streamline Pictures, Mr. Macek went on to bring other anime titles to US audiences including the critically acclaimed Akira and my personal favorite Luipn III: Castle of Cagliostro. As a young viewer, one of the coolest aspects of Robotech was showing off guys piloting giant transforming jets/bipedal robots to shoot alien invaders. Anime was still a novel concept in North America in 1985 when Robotech first came out. Some viewers of the series saw the differences in art styles, plots, action, and characters when compared to the Western cartoons of the time. With some in-depth research about Robotech's origins in Japan and learning that there was a whole lot of other anime there. The interest in the genre grew and the beginning waves of anime fandom began to take shape. Twenty-five years later, anime is still a niche market but has lots of distributors, book & video store shelves artists, television presence, influences in the Western cartoons, and conventions dedicated to the genre to fill the niche.

Carl was a leading pioneer to bring this foreign genre into North America. The problem with being a leading pioneer is being the first target who gets shot at and Carl Macek was no exception. The drive to bring the newfangled anime genre into the US meant the occasional adaptation needed to better suit American audiences or censors. Nowadays raw unaltered anime is more readily available through the Internet so extreme anime purists are more apt to criticize his efforts. At the same time, many fans are grateful for getting introduced to anime thanks to watching Carl Macek's work in their younger days.

Carl Macek and the rest of Harmony Gold celebrated 25 years of Robotech at Animation on Display 2010 in San Francisco. I was unable to attend the panel celebrating their work, but the convention did have a Meet the Guests party during the convention. I managed to meet the man in a casual setting amid bottled teas, Red Bulls, Vietnamese hors d'œuvres, and a DJ spinning some dance music. He was autographing various Robotech merchandise like figurines while talking to fans about the shows he wrote and/or produced and posing for photographs with fans. When I eventually got to see the man himself, all I could say to him was "Hi" before shaking his hand. We had a brief chat about the Robotech I used to watch and comparing it to the current giant robot of today. Then I forgot to have my picture taken with him. I figured I would see him at a later convention this year that would also celebrate 25 years of Robotech.

Carl Macek passed away from a heart attack on Saturday 17th, 2010.