The Lord Of The Rings Is BACK! (As An Anime)

The Warner Bros. movie division, which made the Oscar-winning Rings trilogy and later adapted The Hobbit, has partnered with Warner Animation Group to produce an original anime set in Tolkien’s fantasy world, the companies announced Thursday.

Titled The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, the standalone feature will be directed by Kenji Kamiyama, an anime veteran who last directed Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV series, and produced by Joseph Chou. The two have worked on some of the biggest anime franchises over the years including Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya, Ultraman, Appleseed, on top of Ghost in the Shell.

If you know me, then you know that I am both a big Anime guy and HUGE LOTR fan. That said, this is not a marriage I saw coming or one that I think I want.

LOTR is a nearly endless well of stories and content that is begging to be adapted. Since the rather crappy, CGI fuck-fest that was the Hobbit trilogy came out, the only thing we have really had to look forward to is the Amazon Prime series which probably won't come out until late 2022/early 2023. More content should be made, I just don't know if Anime is the right vehicle for it. I can't think of one that even really matches the vibe of either trilogy. Claymore? Demon Slayer? Beserk? 

I just don't think this is a fit. The director of this, Kenji Kamiyama, isn't a name I am super familiar with, but I do love the original Ghost in the Shell. For those of you not familiar with it, that anime basically laid the foundation for The Matrix, and the wachowski's basically admitted to ripping it off nearly beat-for-beat. If that wasn't bad enough, they made a live action version of the anime with ScarJo that flopped HARD.

Anyway, point is that LOTR needs more series adaptations.