Carl Macek passed away last April 2010

[fenrir72]

articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/24/lo...s sings-20100423

Pardon how "historical"(for those who can't get it, it means old news) this article already is but American Anime guru Carl Macek has already passed away. I don't think we can measure, for better or worst his contribution to our anime fix in the passed two decades or so.

I'm quite surprised I read/hear nary a peep in the anime community(either that or I must have been living under a rock)

[j.sonic]

I found out about it a week after it happened, so yeah, the news was probably a bit low profile. And I guess a lot of anime purists would tend to overlook what he did because it can be argued that Robotech is a "bastsardization" of three perfectly decent anime series, among other reasons.

Still, the news really saddened me. I grew up on Robotech - the show, the novels, and even played the Palladium Books RPG for a while in high school. I loved the story and how it was unresolved, and I also thought Shadow Chronicles was pretty good, even after I've seen and appreciated the original Macross and Mospeada shows. I never thought about it until he passed on, but Robotech was my first "real" exposure to anime, since super robot shows like Voltes V or Daimos didn't really appeal to me at the time. So yes, Mr. Macek has my lifelong gratitude.

[Kurimao]

what would you prefer G1 Transformers cartoon or Robotech anime?

without him america would have nothing but mindless children robot cartoons.

[fenrir72]

You had the Palladium RPG books? Lucky you bro. Back then (1986 up) been trying to find one to no avail.

For those so called "purists" who complain of the bastardization, they are a selfish lot. Why? Well if it wasn't for Robotech, the American market would have been relegated to Scooby Doo and the like.

Without even thinking of the logistical nightmare plus culture shock, heck even the business sense...........would you even take a chance on an unknown product and introduce the work in it's purist form? Heck, the TV censors would have gone scissor happy! We back then in the late 70's had to contend with the shock of Voltes V OT violence (our standards back then were quite high no?) so what more the Polly Anna type shows that were the staple of the american market?

Oh yes the purists would have said this and that, but primarily, CM had to contend with real politik. Plus the fact that the original anime form of the three series (Macross, Southern Cross and Mospeada) wouldn't get through the syndication rule in the US of A. As we all know, the USA is the greatest, primary marketplace of goods to showcase your work or product. If you don't pass the US market, then you're doomed and your work (if you're lucky) relegated to a limited number of Conventions which, back then was just not cool enough to be economically viable. FYI(for those who don't know,the word Robotech was coined from a series of model kits by a company named Revell. Most of the molds whose rights to sell internationally by Revell happened to be based on Orguss, Macross and the likes.

So the Revell guys tangoed with Harmony Gold, who back then purchased the animation rights to localize blah blah blah and the rest is history. (It was up to CM then to make a great big toy endorsement (that's what the anime based on such were meant to be back then) out of the whole bunch.

Heck, there were just minute changes to the story thrust anyway that help link the 3 unrelated stories anyway..............no big. So I take back in another site my withdrawing comparison to him of Shakespeare as OT. He is indeed a Shakespeare in a modern sense. Take a look at the novelization by the now non canon Jack McKinney novels........who would have thought?

And another thing of the bastardization, compare it to Gatchaman/Battle of the Planets. That was the worst hatchet job localization of all and yet...............and yet the beauty of Gatchaman never could be denied......hence thanks to Anime localization companies (like the late ADV,Warner Bros and the likes(internet etc) ,we now know what the real thing was meant to be. So do we crucify Sandy Frank productions?

So Mr. Macek, even if other people wish to relegate you as a mere footnote, there are other people who think otherwise.

[fenrir72]

To your question Kurimao, Transformers was and always will be a great phenomenon. What made it last long? Well the 1986 Death of Optimus Prime shocker that is. Without that death, no one would even remember it (plus the great but somewhat campy plot lines Marvel Production applied to this glorified 30 minute toy ad (for the @nal retentive it was actually a 20 minute + running time)......this is America we're talking about)" hello .................Gobots Challenge of the Rocklords or something"

By dumb luck (Hasbro shifting to a next generation of productions) so they needed to change into a new page hence kill them all G1 season 1/2 guys...........well look where it got them no? A kid was said to have locked himself in the room for a week because of Optimus' death. Need I say more?

Another thing, there are some unsubstantiated allegations that Frank Miller(yup, old Mr. samurai storyline Dark knight himself) helped in the plotting of the movie. So, given how inclined he is on those death heroically with a bang (as scene in a lot of anime themes) well one would suspect of anime influences in that particular transformer tale.

[j.sonic]

fenrir72 - I didn't have all of them, but I had a few original copies, and the rest Xeroxed from copies of friends. Sadly, they're somewhere in the depths of our bodega now. Which is fine though, since a good amount of the content the RPGs had was inaccurate, e.g. coming up with a second Shadow Fighter called the "VF-1V Vindicator" when in fact that was the actual Shadow Fighter in the show. (The Shadow Fighter in the RPG was erroneously based on unmanned Shadow Drones in the show.)

[fenrir72]

I once tried having an aunt order the Paladium RPG Robotech books in Minnesota, well I got the Jack McKinney novels instead...........go figure right? Either it didn't reach her state or it simply sold out.

I want to add also to whom we should also thank for our current anime fix/cum toy endorsement golden age we are now experiencing. Ronald Reagan! Yup Republican President of the US of A.

You'd also say d'uh? Anyways, it's like this, as mentioned above, the US is the primary market were you want to pitch your product and hopefully it gets mainstream and eventually affordable.

Remember in the late 1970's when we got flooded by a lot of Japanese anime robots? Heck it was quite expensive then, but we were lucky, for a while that is because we had Questor and the like to localize the shows.

In the USA, they had a law that forbids showing cartoons that for all intents and purpose was a glorified 20 minute advertisement to kids. Well the "old gipper" using his "Reaganomics" conservative principles did away with all that. The result of which is what we are all enjoying now....................

Transformers,Robotech,Voltron,He-man etc.............