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This Week in Anime - Middle Earth, Circa 1978

Because given that LOTR: War of the Rohirrim is an anime officially, this has led to some debate if the 2 Rankin Bass/Topcraft animated adaptation of the Hobbit and Return of the King should be re-classify as anime because of Topcraft studio and the Japanese animators that worked on The Hobbit and The Return of the King TV special would later worked on Nausicaa for Hayao Miyazaki. The same animators at Topcraft that worked on Rankin-Bass and Nausicaa would later worked at Studio Ghibli and that's where anime history goes and evolve. Hence the debate question: Does Topcraft work on Rankin-Bass should be classify as anime? Does this applied to the 2 previous LOTR adaptation that Rankin-Bass/Topcraft worked on?

With that out of the way I sure don't think the fact that a non-Japanese series utilizing a particular anime studio for its animation should qualify it as anime. If we did that we would have to re-classify ThunderCats(animated by Japan's Pacific Animation Corporation) as anime with the rest(or much) of the Rankin-Bass oeuvre, as well as a ton of other shows like Dungeons and Dragons(Toei) and Inspector Gadget(TMS).

As I'm sure Tolkien intended with his generations-spanning Jesus allegory, that was mostly just an excuse for him to come up with a bunch of fictional languages and lore to justify them.

I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

There is no 'symbolism' or conscious allegory in my story. Allegory of the sort 'five wizards = five senses' is wholly foreign to my way of thinking. There were five wizards and that is just a unique part of history. To ask if the Orcs 'are' Communists is to me as sensible as asking if Communists are Orcs. That there is no allegory does not, of course, say there is no applicability. There always is. And since I have not made the struggle wholly unequivocal: sloth and stupidity among hobbits, pride and [illegible] among Elves, grudge and greed in Dwarf-hearts, and folly and wickedness among the 'Kings of Men', and treachery and power-lust even among the 'Wizards', there is I suppose applicability in my story to present times.

I hope 'comment on the world' does not sound too solemn. I have no didactic purpose, and no allegorical intent. (I do not like allegory (properly so called: most readers appear to confuse it with significance or applicability) but that is a matter too long to deal with here.)

The use of éarendel in A-S Christian symbolism as the herald of the rise of the true Sun in Christ is completely alien to my use. The Fall of Man is in the past and off stage; the Redemption of Man in the far future. We are in a time when the One God, Eru, is known to exist by the wise, but is not approachable save by or through the Valar, though He is still remembered in (unspoken) prayer by those of Númenórean descent.

Jackson's films win overall on homoeroticism, though. Like, Frodo and Sam have a lot of cute interactions here, but the live-action version fully understands that they're boyfriends and deeply in love.

You might find that many people are blind, willingly or not, to what informs their worldviews. Authors are not an exception to this, nor is their work. Criticism is founded on messages in the text. LoTR as a work is rife with men feeling their feelings outside of the bounds of what we now recognize as more 'traditional' masculinity. They feel. They cry. They are tender to one another in ways that transcends beyond the fragile masculinity that adorns sword and sorcery works abound. Tolkien was good friends with C.S. Lewis, and was at odds with how explicit the Christianity in his stories were while having no problem saying his own work was "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work." His experiences in WW1, his own devout Catholicism, and many many other factors combined into The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The world is richer for that.

And it doesn't take much reading of the books to see that Sam and Frodo deeply love each other. Like c'mon. That was noticed when it came out. It's a central part of the story! Pretending it's some new reinvention just cause people have more words to describe it (tongue in cheek or not) is deeply unserious.

Piglet the Grate wrote:

TWIA - Lucas DeRuyter wrote: As I'm sure Tolkien intended with his generations-spanning Jesus allegory, that was mostly just an excuse for him to come up with a bunch of fictional languages and lore to justify them. I can only hope that Lucas DeRuyter is making an inside joke here, as Tolkien used application and not "conscious" allegory in his stories: J.R.R. Tolkien in Forward to the Second Edition (1966) wrote: I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author. J.R.R. Tolkien in Letter 203 wrote: There is no 'symbolism' or conscious allegory in my story. Allegory of the sort 'five wizards = five senses' is wholly foreign to my way of thinking. There were five wizards and that is just a unique part of history. To ask if the Orcs 'are' Communists is to me as sensible as asking if Communists are Orcs. That there is no allegory does not, of course, say there is no applicability. There always is. And since I have not made the struggle wholly unequivocal: sloth and stupidity among hobbits, pride and [illegible] among Elves, grudge and greed in Dwarf-hearts, and folly and wickedness among the 'Kings of Men', and treachery and power-lust even among the 'Wizards', there is I suppose applicability in my story to present times. J.R.R. Tolkien in Letter 215 wrote: I hope 'comment on the world' does not sound too solemn. I have no didactic purpose, and no allegorical intent. (I do not like allegory (properly so called: most readers appear to confuse it with significance or applicability) but that is a matter too long to deal with here.) As for Tolkien making an allegory of Jesus Christ: J.R.R. Tolkien in Letter 297 wrote: The use of éarendel in A-S Christian symbolism as the herald of the rise of the true Sun in Christ is completely alien to my use. The Fall of Man is in the past and off stage; the Redemption of Man in the far future. We are in a time when the One God, Eru, is known to exist by the wise, but is not approachable save by or through the Valar, though He is still remembered in (unspoken) prayer by those of Númenórean descent. All I will have to say on the following subject: TWIA - Steve Jones wrote: Jackson's films win overall on homoeroticism, though. Like, Frodo and Sam have a lot of cute interactions here, but the live-action version fully understands that they're boyfriends and deeply in love. Archimedes stated that with "a firm place to stand on" and with a long enough lever he could move the Earth. Since I do not have that long of a pole, best to say no more than this is a highly controversial contention and one mostly brought forward in the 21st Century. The reader with a search engine can find plenty of discussion on the matter if interested.

You might find that many people are blind, willingly or not, to what informs their worldviews. Authors are not an exception to this, nor is their work. Criticism is founded on messages in the text. LoTR as a work is rife with men feeling their feelings outside of the bounds of what we now recognize as more 'traditional' masculinity. They feel. They cry. They are tender to one another in ways that transcends beyond the fragile masculinity that adorns sword and sorcery works abound. Tolkien was good friends with C.S. Lewis, and was at odds with how explicit the Christianity in his stories were while having no problem saying his own work was "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work." His experiences in WW1, his own devout Catholicism, and many many other factors combined into The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The world is richer for that.

And it doesn't take much reading of the books to see that Sam and Frodo deeply love each other. Like c'mon. That was noticed when it came out. It's a central part of the story! Pretending it's some new reinvention just cause people have more words to describe it (tongue in cheek or not) is deeply unserious.