It’s been reported that at the age of 58, Carl Macek, the producer and story editor of the American version of Robotech, suffered a fatal heart attack on April 17, 2010.

Macek has had quite an impressive list of accomplishments, aside from Robotech, his company, Streamline Studios, imported and dubbed some of the most influential anime from the 1980s and 1990s, including Akira, Miyazaki’s Lupin the III and Laputa, and Wicked City.  He was also the first to produce and English Language dub of Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totorro, which still stands superior over the more recent Disney dub.

I can honestly say that without Macek, I would have no knowledge or interest in anime whatsoever.  But Robotech brought me in, he introduced the United States to Miyazaki and Akira and helped to create a culture here, for better or for worse.  And I’m grateful to him for it.  His work on Robotech is some of the best, most innovative, and fun storytelling I’ve witnessed.  Anime has largely passed me by in the last 20 years, but Robotech and Akira and the Miyazaki movies have been my mainstay that I revisit often.  And such is my love for Robotech that my daughter’s middle name is Miriya.

I’d always held out hope that we’d get a big screen Robotech movie and Macek would be involved, but alas, it doesn’t seem as though that dream was meant to be.