| Mummelmann said: The setting looks amazing, and the score is very promising. But I can't marry the concepts together; for me, the LotR is high fantasy with grim undertones and dark melodrama, and it works in live-action. Anime is different to me, the character design, movements, it all just clashes somehow. I think I would have disliked LotR in another animated format as well, it just doesn't work for me. But it's good that the IP gets new and fresh takes, not to mention something that isn't the woeful Rings of Power on Amazon (suffered through season 1, will not tune in for season 2). |
Have you watched Bakshi's LotR from 1978? Around mid 80s, I discovered Tolkien's books and that film, and, while constrained by production budget and running time, that animated feature, IMO, managed to translate books in very believable and honest way, while having distinct tone of its own. Honestly, I disliked Jackson's version when it released, from my POV, it missed the tone and character of books quite a bit, but came to appreciate it somewhat at much later date, after watching it with kids.
As for this anime, apart from not liking anime style in general and seeing people of Rohan with manga eyes and faces inducing immediate cringe reaction in me, whole story (at least from trailer) seems like yet another "modern" take on Tolkien's world - I managed to watch pilot of Rings of Power, and said fuck no, so this seems to me like another fuck no moment, at least for me.
