The Riders of Rohan return to the big screen in The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, where the world of Middle-earth is given a new perspective combining familiar film sets and icons, and brought to life through Japanese anime.
Director Kenji Kamiyama is no stranger to works within anime that transcend international barriers. Kamiyama’s work on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex — a series whose popularity and iconography have made it a progenitor of Hollywood’s trend of live-action anime adaptations — as well as the reverse trend of new anime projects expanding upon established film series such as Blade Runner: Black Lotus, and the standalone hit from Star Wars: Visions: The Ninth Jedi, showcase the strengths of anime as a medium within our entertainment ecosystem.
Anime Trending spoke with Director Kamiyama and wanted to know the story of how The Lord of the Rings was envisioned as an anime project. We also talked about some of the most exciting strengths of anime that shine throughout The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which is set to release in movie theaters on December 13, 2024.
Director Kamiyama, how were you brought into The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim project?
Kenji Kamiyama: Initially, Jason Demarco from Warner Bros. — with whom I have worked in the past on Blade Runner: Black Lotus — approached me with the idea saying, “What about making an animated version of The Lord of the Rings but using the Japanese anime style?” That’s the idea he had when he was asking me what I thought about it, so initially, I thought I was just being a consultant on this, and that’s how I got into this project.
What were some of the strengths of using anime to tell the story of The War of the Rohirrim? How did you combine your strengths with the aspects of Tolkien’s work with the iconography of the original Peter Jackson films to give The War of the Rohirrim its unique identity in The Lord of the Rings series as an anime?
Kenji Kamiyama: When this project initially started, what we were thinking had more to do with “Is it really possible to show the advantages of having an anime style? How much can we show the advantages?” Because we thought we were actually starting from a negative because, for example, there are so many types of scenes that are very challenging to realize by way of animation. In the plot, we have two thousand Riders clashing against the army of Dunlendings in a huge battle sequence, and we also needed to depict thousands of people fleeing as refugees. The quantity of those people is considered an issue for animation, but the plot includes many different types of challenging scenes.
Kenji Kamiyama: What I was thinking [was that] it’s really possible to bring out the advantages of animation, [which] was a challenge, but in terms of the aforementioned scene with the two thousand Riders, that was something that even the live-action found difficult to achieve. However, we managed to do that. [With] that, we actually showed a sense of dynamism, and that’s something that appeals emotionally to the audience. In addition, there are so many things that anime is good at — for example, depicting the creatures or creating a world that nobody has ever seen before, so that kind of thing can be added as well, and we managed to do so. Ultimately, the end result is something that can only be achieved by way of animation technology.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is set 183 years before the original events of The Lord of the Rings films. The film cast includes Brian Cox as Helm Hammerhand, Gaia Wise as Héra, Luke Pasqualino as Wulf, with special appearances by Miranda Otto narrating as Éowyn and Christopher Lee as Saruman.
