They were at least trying in the Disney dubs.

Troma was probably as big as almost any studio in Japan in 1988. Japan is small and what constitutes a media empire or a major motion picture studio is just puny compared to even a major UHF station in the US back then. Teenagers were painting cels for Totoro in their rooms after doing their homework. This was a long time ago and this stuff was considered so below Disney or even Hanna Barbara back then that nobody would want it.

Also, in parts of 80s USA you’d get beat up just for being Japanese back then. Hell, you’d get beat up just for being Korean and therefore mistaken for Japanese. Video games never came out with 24 symbol Japanese names written in three type faces. They usually scrubbed that stuff out of the game completely. I don’t know how much this had an affect on Troma level stuff, probably none. Columbia was bought by Sony around this then. American cars fell below %50 of the market...there was a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment at the time despite extremely good relations otherwise..

I think The Karate Kid did a lot for US Japanese relations back then

3x3 eyes LD is dubbed.

I forgot about 3x3 eyes.

You can count on everything he put out as being dubbed unless there was a special circumstance like Cockroaches being live action mostly or Akira being so crazy popular there was no way on earth he could argue that a subtitled version wouldn’t pay for itself.

The guy was a professional dubber. He only did dubs and this was a large part of why people hated him. This was the VHS days, remember, which means subs OR dubs and never both. So when he got a license for something like Nadia and released it dubbed then you don’t get any subtitled release as long as he held the rights. The LDs also have raw Japanese but no CCs, unlike all the other dual language LDs from that era. He was convinced he wanted to be a mainstream anime company which meant selling dubbed-only tapes at $10 and he didn’t care what else you wanted or how much you’d pay because he was big time, he was on the SciFi channel with his dubs and they’d never run subs.

I would argue his responsibility for the mall otaku phenomenon is only about %25 though.

Yep this also has Japanese mono but no CC. I can capture and add my own subtitles to the video like Gunbuster. Why do this instead of downloading? Well it gives me something to do and I enjoy it.

I was listening to him on the DVD of Heavy Metal, very boring person, or he really hated doing animated things just wanted to capitalize off of making more money.

I think of Carl as Miramax /Miraxe when they would butcher stuff for the US VHS rental market around the same time.

This is when you get effed up s**t. This is also why I like Discotek, you can tell the people involved have a real passion for what they are doing.

Carl also loved what he sold. He knew the second he saw Macross that he wanted to localize it. That’s the fan in him making that call.

He was first and foremost a salesman though. I think maybe he was a cel dealer before Streamline and Robotech.

He ran a popular culture archive at a university in California and made friends with the C&FO who were doing stuff like grab Japanese broadcasts with satellite dishes in the early '80s, importing LDs etc. There was a cell store that had members as well. He was a fan first. RIP Carl Macek because without him I never would have seen Robotech at 7 years old and my life wouldn't be the same. Remember Macross was largely unmolested from the original. On a recent rewatching I was still surprised at the level of violence left in. For example in a later episode a Zentraudi rebel puts his gunpod up to the window of an office building and blows away the whole floor, you see the workers actually get fried. No "oh those were robot office workers" line thrown in neither like some dubs would have done at the time.

I have everything Macross I want unmolested on LD and with subs on DVD now but I never would have been a fan without Robotech. I mean it has an emotional meaning to me, I cried for hours when the last episode aired.

by the way I have absolutely no interest from Macross 7 onwards. I tried but the Kawamori sequels are insults to the original.

Macross has a tier list

The best
Macross, DYRL

Still excellent
Macross Frontier

Watchable but not really Macross
Plus, Zero

No
Macross 7

Still trying to get time and watch the Macross 7 boxes I picked up, if they aren't my taste I'll put them in my shop for 10 years at a reasonable price

the design for Mylene and some of the music (Tomo Sakurai tracks) are the only good parts of 7. Towards the end it touches on the origins of the Supervision Army but it never really explains anything. It takes endless poorly animated generic dogfights and stupid idiots piloting ridiculous valkyries controlled by guitars to get to that point by the way.

I love Macross 7, especially Dynamite.

buy hey you're a save the space whales kinda guy in real life too tho

I'm more of a "yeah we got an idol singer psy-ops weapon but it's still gonna take a couple of well placed wing launched nukes to take down that Zentraudi Thurvel Salan" kinda guy

Dig out the UK VHS of Catgirl Nuku Nuku if you want a super rubbish dub.

I can't do dubs for any film. Regardless of genre. Subs or nothing!