Name Marc Handler | Role Writer | |
Occupation Voice director, script writer/adapter, story editor Movies Shaolin Soccer, Tenchi the Movie 2: The Daug, No Place to Hide, Freedom Project Similar People Min Hun Fung, Dai Sato, Stephen Chow, Shuhei Morita, Kan‑Cheung Tsang | ||
Marc Handler is an American writer, voice director, story editor and producer best known for his work on Cowboy Bebop, Astro Boy, FLCL, Naruto, and Voltron. He is a pioneer in bringing anime to Western audiences, and is the first American to work in Japan as a story editor on a Japanese anime series, Tetsuwan Atomu.
Contents
Early life
He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He formed the Subject To Change Theatre Troupe, which was active in political causes such as support for Nelson Mandela in South Africa and women’s rights in America. He earned two Master's degrees from the University of Southern California in directing theatre and writing for film and television.
Career
Handler wrote original episodes for American animation series such as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Widget the World Watcher, and Denver, the Last Dinosaur. He became involved in the first major wave of imported anime for Western audiences, writing the English language scripts for Voltron; Saber Rider; and later for Transformers and Eagle Riders. As anime evolved, he worked as a writer and voice director on anime projects that skewed to older audiences such as Cowboy Bebop (TV series and film), Fooly Cooly, Ghost in the Shell, Steamboy, and Metropolis (film). He later worked on Chinese, Korean, Thai, and Singaporean projects for companies such as Sunwoo Entertainment, Goldilocks Studio, and Disney, China. He also voice directed Stephen Chow in Hong Kong for the English dub of Shaolin Soccer, and wrote episodes for the 2011-2012 successful revival of Power Rangers.
Handler has done professional presentations for the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing and for the International Animation Industry Forum in Ningbo, China; has been a judge for the Canadian BANFF awards; has been a guest speaker at Tokyo University; and a guest speaker at San Diego Comic-Con and at various US animation conventions.
He has written two books on writing and presentations which were published by Beijing University Press in China and Freelec Publishers in Korea.