Streamline Pictures

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Streamline Pictures was an American distribution company that was best known for its distribution of English dubbed Japanese animation. Founded in 1987, it was the first North American company that was founded primarily for the intention of distributing translated anime uncut and faithful to the original content. The founder of Streamline was Carl Macek, who had worked for Harmony Gold USA during the mid 80s, most notably on the series Robotech. Macek was joined at Streamline by Steve Kramer, Ardwight Chamberlin, Tom Wyner, and Mike Reynolds all of whom served as series staff writers (and voice actors) on Robotech.

The first high profile product distributed by Streamline was its 1990 release of the 1988 film Akira. Streamline is also best known for dubbing and distribution of three films directed by Hayao Miyazaki: The Castle of Cagliostro, My Neighbor Totoro, and Kiki's Delivery Service, in 1988. As a fan of Miyazaki's films, Macek did not think Castle in the Sky (of which Streamline was the distributor) had received the quality of dubbing that a Miyazaki film deserved. He thought that it could have been done better, so the Japanese releaser Tokuma Shoten gave him the opportunity to prove his words. For his first project, he asked to dub My Neighbor Totoro, one of his favorite Miyazaki works. (Since then, however, Castle in the Sky and My Neighbor Totoro have both been redubbed by Disney.)

Streamline, in being the first company dedicated to making anime accessible to the English speaking world, was notable for releasing a wide variety of anime that fit in a wide variety of genres, many of which do not fit completely in any genre such as "Twilight of the Cockroaches". During the 90s VHS era, before the common availability of hybrid DVDs, anime distributors released anime via subtitled or dubbed tapes with the subtitled editions being noticeably more expensive than the dubs which were expected to sell better. Streamline is also notable in being the only such company to eschew this practice and release only dubs of its anime. The only exceptions were the later Akira subtitled release and their Robotech Collection', which included episodes of the original Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada episodes on the same tape along with their Robotech counterparts.

Tokuma Shoten was pleased with the quality of the initial work, and it immediately hired Streamline Pictures to produce the English language version of Kiki's Delivery Service. Soon after its release, the film was bought by Japan Airlines who showed it during their flights between Japan from the U.S. It also had a strong showing nationally in art house theaters. (The film has since been redubbed by Disney.) It also licensed other popular anime series and movies such as Little Nemo, Vampire Hunter D and Speed Racer.

Because of Carl Macek's notoriety with a certain branch of fandom, Streamline became one of the early catalysts of the sub vs dub debate. Macek's philosophy towards anime dubbing, as stated in several interviews, most notably published Protoculture Addicts and Animag, has became largely synonymous with the negative connotation concerning "Americanized dubs".

Streamline Pictures went out of business early in 1999, folding into Orion Pictures Corporation, which, in turn, had been folded into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer two years earlier, in 1997.

Today, the Streamline film and television library is owned by MGM and Sony Pictures Entertainment.