Macekre: Difference between revisions

{{tropeUseful Notes}}

{{quote|'''Ichigo:''' ''"Mew Mew StylePower, think I'll pass, EnglishYour dubMew Mew Power can kiss my--"'' <br />

'''Mint:''' ''"[[Curse Cut Short|Ichigo!]]"''|Fanart that made the rounds of the ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]]'' fandom upon the release of ''[[Four Kids Entertainment|Mew Mew Power]]''}}

Pronounced similarly to "massacre", the term was coined by anime fans from the name of the late producer/writer [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Macek:Carl Macek|Carl Macek]], whose early "free adaptations" of [[Anime]] frequently bore little or no resemblance to the original Japanese stories. His usual procedure was to dispose of the original script entirely, and write his own from scratch -- butscratch—but this was no ''[[Samurai Pizza Cats]]''. Often he would combine two or more unrelated series simply in order to have enough episodes to fulfill a syndication deal. He is particularly reviled for the seemingly xenophobic ruthlessness with which he purged any hint of Japanese culture -- whatculture—what he euphemistically called "ethnic gestures" -- from—from the series which he adapted. (Macek later claimed that many of these changes, including his having to splice together three different series to create ''Robotech'', were a case of [[Executive Meddling]]; he was required to force the show to fit syndication-length guidelines, without having complete scripts for any of them, while still making it compelling enough to [[Merchandise-Driven|sell the accompanying toy lines]]. Trying to tie the three shows together by giving them a unified script was his attempt at meeting these conditions; obviously, this didn't work as well as he hoped.)

Fans (with some justification) feel that this practice is disrespectful to the creators, as the series is being treated as a pure marketing product rather really "getting" the draw. The practice has fortunately dwindled since the eighties because of the utter hatred modern fans hold for it, as well as the greater accessibility to the original product (although [[Dub -Induced Plot Hole|consistency can flounder]] at times). The importing companies have hopefully realized that the [[Widget Series|quirks]] were what attracted many viewers in the first place. The increasing number of import companies born from fan groups (like [[ADV Films]]) may also have something to do with it. The practice has also largely faded, however, because ironically doing things like what Macek did -- replacingdid—replacing whole scripts and renaming whole casts, writing entirely new musical scores, having to spend days editing and re-cutting a show -- isshow—is actually ''significantly more expensive'' and time-consuming than a straight dub, especially now that the original source music and the like can be stored digitally and easily layered back into an English track. With the margins of the Western anime market being fairly tight, it simply makes more sense to give the fans what they want.

It's worth noting that there is in fact also something of a "sliding scale of Macekre" here. On one end of the scale, you have shows that were, objectively, pretty severely changed -- butchanged—but the changes were done by people who understood both the core appeal of the show in question, liked what they saw, and the changes were more to make the show even ''possible'' in another market -- amarket—a [[Woolseyism]]. A lot of people consider the anime brought over by [[World Events Productions]] in the 1980s to be an example of this -- ''[[Go LionGoLion]]'' and ''[[Sei Juushi Bismarck (Anime)|Sei Juushi Bismarck]]'' went through a heap of changes, but ''[[Voltron]]'' and ''[[Saber Rider and The Star Sheriffs (Anime)|Saber Rider and Thethe Star Sheriffs]]'' were both quite popular and a lot of fans would contend that the shows still "get" the fundamental draw while avoiding traps that would have made them unairable in 1980s America otherwise (such as ''[[Go LionGoLion]]'''s occasional massive violence). On the other end of the scale, of course, are things like ''Tranzor Z'' (the edited version of ''[[Mazinger Z]]''), which was done without any care whatsoever and without understanding why people like the show at all. Invariably this results in a failed product that buries a franchise in a market for decades and leaves licensors furious. Therefore, it's possible to still change a show dramatically in adaptation and not "ruin" a franchise... but it takes a ''lot'' of skill and care, and too many times that just doesn't happen, leading to some of the more onerous examples found throughout TVTAll The Tropes.

Until ''Robotech'' did it, even the Japanimation fans who had advocated so hard for "as faithful as possible" translations were unsure that the concept could be financially successful. Even the concept of showing a syndicated animated series [[Out of Order|in proper episode order]] was at that time unprecedented, as were things like [[Never Say "Die"|actually allowing the concept of death to be handled on screen]]. What Carl Macek did was a huge risk, and thankfully it paid off. Unfortunately, Harmony Gold apparently didn't want to credit the original creators or animators who were the real reasons for the success of ''Robotech''.<ref>Shoji Kawamori, Noboru Ishiguro, Sukehiro Tomita, Haruhiko Mikimoto and Ichiro Itano from the ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]'' side, and [[Yoshitaka Amano]] and [[Shinji Aramaki]] from the ''[[Genesis Climber Mospeada]]'' side.</ref>. ''Robotech'' not only found its audience of older animation fans, it won awards and opened the eyes of the western world to the possibilities of "grown up" animation. [[Seinfeld Is Unfunny|Sure, it's easy to look back now and criticize it for what it's not]], in context of modern material that has been the beneficiary of the revolution it began, but [[Fair for Its Day|in the context of the time it was nothing short of radical and groundbreaking]].

Historically, ''Star Blazers'' and ''Voltron'' led to ''Robotech'', which in turn led to ''[[Akira (Manga)|Akira]]''. Without those groundbreaking early steps, the later ones would have been impossible.

Contrast [[Woolseyism]] (where the changes are seen as more organic and workable), [[Gag Dub]] (where nearly the entire dialogue is rewritten from the ground up, and the changes are for intentionally comic purposes, often [[MST|making fun of the original]]), [[Streamlined]] for when content in the story is '''completely''' altered, and [[Good Bad Translation]].

See also [[Difficulty Byby Region]], [[Dub Name Change]].

No examples, please. This just describes the concept. {{noexamples|For the examples that were on this page, please go to [[Cut and Paste Translation]].}}

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