Director Kenji Kamiyama Calls The War of the Rohirrim an 'Unprecedented Opportunity' for Anime

Director Kenji Kamiyama has been in the business of making anime for over 30 years and has since garnered acclaim for his work on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Eden of the East. His latest project offers an unprecedented opportunity: the ability to join the anime medium with one of the hottest properties in film. In his own words, Kamiyama shares how The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim anime film is important to him as a unique chance to feature animators' work on a global scale for what he hopes is a huge audience.

Kenji Kamiyama: So, making anime is hard work; I mean, doing anything is hard work, but anime is very labor-intensive work, and [we] literally have to put heart and soul into it to try to create something and get it to the finish line. So what I constantly think about is, "What is the value of doing [this] project? What does it mean for the audience, and what does it mean for the artists and staff who work on it?" Because there's got to be some purpose to it. You are creating a work that is supposed to be seen. So when you make something that's not even seen at all, that's a very tragic thing.

When hearing about, for example, Tolkien's work and Peter Jackson's movies, that setting presented an opportunity to create a movie that would be worth the time and effort required to make something like this because of the afforded platform. This means, yes, it will be nearly impossible to get this film done on time and to the quality that's being asked of us. But it is worth undertaking just because of the opportunity that it presents for a storytelling and visual possibility, and all that effort will go into a platform where it will be exposed to the greatest number possible of the audience who would want to come and watch it.

That's probably not just for this project but for the anime medium because it is opening a new door. There has never been this kind of wide release tied to a blockbuster film before. So, it is an unprecedented opportunity.

I'm sure there's a lot of pressure with how many people will likely turn out to come see this. There have been quite a few different adaptations in the world of The Lord of the Rings, both animated and live-action. So, when approaching this project, what did you feel you had to do right, and what did you feel like you had to avoid?

KAMIYAMA: It's a difficult question because it's one of those things when you're doing an adaptation, especially done in the film format, it has to stand up as a film. Meaning even if you come in without prior knowledge, you should be able to enjoy something of this scale. So, it has to stand up as a film, but simultaneously, it cannot betray the fans' expectations. There are billions out there, so how do you do that and express it through the medium of anime? So, you know, those were the challenges. However, one thing that I focused on was that this is something that fans will want to see and appreciate.

This project actually was not quite consistent with the thematic approaches that I take on with my other works. This [story] comes from someone else, and [past] adaptations were done by someone else. I had to make sure that was addressed. It needs to be something that fans can come in and recognize and enjoy being immersed in, but it'll also have to stand up as a film by itself. I was laser-focused on trying to create a film that would fit that objective.

This is the first female-led Lord of the Rings film. Can you talk about developing Hera for the film?

KAMIYAMA: I'm no stranger to a strong female lead being the center of the story. A lot of my great works were done in that setting. So I've been doing that actually before it became a thing in Hollywood, I guess. And it's never been unusual in Japanese anime. That wasn't the reason for creating this character. I mean, it helped.

When you read the story, it's only a few pages in the appendix. It tells you what happened in terms of this great Helm Hammerhand story and how it tragically ended and resulted in the end of his bloodlines and all that. But all of that gets triggered by this politically-arranged marriage proposal to his daughter. What is interesting about it is that Tolkien didn't give her a name at the time. What happened was in the The Lord of the Rings universe, women weren't really in line to inherit the throne of the King.

But you have a character who started this whole chain of events, and on top of it, you have Helm Hammerhand, who's very popular but dies before the story ends. So you need to have a character who can be an observer and be a part of that story to carry it forward and complete it. A movie has an arc, and you need to be able to finish it. So a hero is needed to [for the audience to] care and experience that journey.

That was a perfect opening because she was nameless, so it was like, "Okay, what if..."

While it affords us [that freedom], we're not touching Tolkien's story at all. It's preserved. It's going to happen as it's written, and it'll be shown as it is. But there's an [added] element of this daughter who is given a name and who is carrying the story forward and bringing it to an end. That was an interesting angle for me because it gives us that freedom to tell the story and have a proper story of a film's arc, the hero's journey, without touching or adding the text. In a way, it was a very logical decision.

Joseph Chou: I guess I can add that he's fond of saying, "Look, it's anime," meaning it's very hard to ask animators to draw hobbits. It's good to have a beautiful, strong female lead kick some ass on screen. Obviously, that helps. I think, in a way, everything's clicked. It was just a perfect opening that Tolkien had given us, and I think he could take that and then craft this film with the screenwriters.

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim opens in theaters and IMAX in the U.S. on December 13.