Wait, Is That 'Lord Of The Rings: The War Of Rohirrim' Anime Actually 'Anime?'
It's time to bust out the anime alignment chart because New Line Cinema and Warner Brothers have released the first promotional photo for Lord Of The Rings: The War Of Rohirrim, an upcoming film that, when it was first announced in June last year, was billed as a Lord of the Rings anime.
Put simply, the first concept art teaser for the film doesn't quite look like anime.
A new #LordOfTheRings original anime feature titled “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” is set for release in April 2024. Variety can exclusively reveal the first look at the film’s concept art: https://t.co/1XzjXccQ2U pic.twitter.com/wHuBGVytwq
— Variety (@Variety) February 14, 2022
The film does have some notable anime muscle behind it: Kenji Kamiyama of Blade Runner: Black Lotus and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is attached as director and anime studio Sola Entertainment is producing the film.
Still, the teaser put doubt in some fans' minds, as many feel burned by Amazon's unreleased (and unrelated) The Rings of Power series in the Lord of the Rings universe. Though news of the Lord of the Rings anime was met with cheers when it was first announced last June, the teaser was met with a more tepid response.
"Lord of the Rings anime" pic.twitter.com/kEVUCSZnr8
— whoops (@12yearsaknave) February 15, 2022
>Lord of the Rings anime directed by Kenji KamiyamaI think I found something more antithetical to LOTR than Amazon's. https://t.co/1rzUM5itmk
— W.M Patrio✝ (@Alerted_Soul) February 15, 2022
This is a cartoon, not anime https://t.co/xMo9wgzugm
— 428cel 🍀 (@RawMilkRacist) February 15, 2022
frodo-chaaaan https://t.co/KNI7gVJRB1 pic.twitter.com/vYEu5GK7Ms
— OLD FINN, NEW TRICKS (@Terafinn) February 15, 2022
Of course, the teaser photo is the only tangible piece of media from the project at this point, so there's no real telling if the film will fit the typical "anime" aesthetic yet. And we'll have to wait a while to find out: the film will release in April 2024. Until then, surely Lord of the Rings and anime fans will sit patiently and not be too harsh on the upcoming project.
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Ingvæonic Huscarl
"Honou ni nagero yo! Kowashite!"
"Kotowaru…"
"ISHIRUDUAAAA!!!"
TheAnt
If you told me this was a screenshot from the Peter Jackson films, I would have believed you.
Bobbobbobbob
Anime has never been or will be based off "how it looks".
ZiggyZig
Or is it not? Japanese animated movies that do not look like anime, are called "animation movies." I don't think Miyazaki's works fall into the anime category, for example.
Venusgate
Assuming anime is a style of visual storytelling based in extreme exaggeration of certain elements, then yes, the tame-ness of Miyazaki films are more akin to moving art pieces than anime. There's too much focus on telling a holistic story for them to feel anime. For the same reason, ATLA.
So, if LotR anime has those same skewed storytelling and exaggerations that Miyazaki doesn't, then it might be a contender.
Molemanninethousand
What is it based on, then?
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Molemanninethousand
Not only does this art do a terrible job of representing what the movie is supposedly being advertised as, but right now is the literal worst time to reveal it with the negative discussions about the Amazon series; it would be one thing if they actually had some significant content to show that actually looks like anime, but again, this post does nothing but undermine its premise as such. They should have waited until they had a trailer or something, especially if the movie isn't coming out until 2024. Clearly they were trying to capitalize on the other announcement and maybe even upstage it, but it ended up backfiring and looking like just more bad news on top of bad news. Reminds me of the trailer for the awful-looking new Masters of the Universe 3D cartoon coming out right when the Revelation one was trending for all the wrong reasons last year.
Everything is Terrible
I can't speak for everyone, but seeing Lord of the Rings and "anime" in the same sentence makes me growl like an enraged bloodhound.
WarLordM
Literally why? The books were animated first, by Ralph Bakshi, and those were pretty great. Doing an original story in animation could be great too
Molemanninethousand
He's referring to stereotypes of what typical anime is like (like with exaggerated martial arts and laser attacks, shouting about power levels, characters drawn with giant eyes, etc.) and how jarringly different that style can be from how we're used to seeing Middle-Earth. Though as shown in the promo image, this upcoming movie seems to look nothing like that so far, to a point where calling it "anime" would be straight-up inappropriate if the film indeed looks anything like the picture, which could pass as concept art for live-action.
The_Sun
well the stereotypes you are talking about are what's associated with action adventure shonen series.there are other genres with their own conventions that are handled differently. shonens just happens to be in the mainstream and is what's commonly associated when people think of "anime". that's not to say the concern isn't valid since, but to disregard something for being "anime" or not thinking something is "anime" because it doesn't fit their preconception is kind of dumb.
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