by The story of the events 200 years before the fantasy film masterpiece The Lord of the Rings trilogy is depicted in the feature-length animated film The Lord of the Rings: Battle of Rohan, directed by Kamiyama Kenji, known for Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Eden of the East.
SOLA Entertainment, known for Ultraman, produced the animation. In an interview, Hashimoto Tomisaburo, who served as production manager (co-producer), and animation producer Dong Zhe spoke about the difficulties and challenges of animation production from the planning stage onwards.
Based on an episode from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Supplement, this film depicts the young princess Hela of Rohan, the land of knights, taking on a battle that will determine the future of her country. Director Peter Jackson, who worked on the live-action trilogy, is serving as executive producer, and Philippa Boyens, who wrote the screenplays for all three films, is also involved as the original creator, resulting in the creation of a legitimate new work with the full cooperation of the live-action film staff.
Adapting an anime film is a “difficult path.”
According to Producer Hashimoto, this film’s project started around August 2021. Director Kamiyama initially thought it would be “challenging” to film using traditional Japanese hand-drawn animation. So, what was the deciding factor that led him to take on the challenge of film adaptation? “If we had turned down a major IP like The Lord of the Rings, there would never again be an opportunity for a Japanese animation company, let alone SOLA Entertainment or Director Kamiyama, to receive an order for a big title. That was the biggest deciding factor. We decided to go for it with the determination that if we missed this big opportunity, it would never come again” (Producer Hashimoto).
To turn “The Lord of the Rings” into a hand-drawn animation, many animators were needed to work together, just as Frodo gathered his “fellow travelers” in the trilogy. Producer Hashimoto, who described it as “a reckless challenge to set out on the open seas,” revealed some memorable words from Director Kamiyama.
“‘With cel animation, even if it were just Hashimoto and me standing by until the end, we wouldn’t be able to make an anime.’ It’s an undeniable thing to say, but it hit home. No matter how much we screamed about wanting to do it, it wouldn’t work without animators and staff. That’s how difficult it was, he said.”
