Hobey ho all,
To start, I am SOOOOO sorry for not posting in such a good long while. Don't worry beloved reader, the Long promised XWP& HLJ retrospective is still coming. Todays musing is being brought because of the amazing newest addition to The Lord of The Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.
Yes as all my reviews go this will be SUPER SPOILERY! So turn away NOW if you don't want to be spoiled!
So literally I managed to just pick up the Bluray for it, yesterday, the 19th of February. First off tho I must say using the medium of the Japanese Anime style was a stroke of genius. Short to say I quite enjoyed this film.
So to start it off the use of animation to tell a story that was only a page and a half in the appendicies of the Lord of the Rings was epic. they took a short bit of history and made it into a full story was awesome. There were some points in the film's style that looked so realistic, and pulled me in from the pressing of play! The characters were so well drawn as well. Animation does bring in some gorgeous facial animations that just flow really well from scene to scene and flows so well with the dialogue. Since this used a Japanese style of animation there is 2 main voice casts, the English and Japanese dubs, I am sure there are options to watch it in other languages, But the trailers did promote 2 main dubs of the story from what I saw of both English and Japanese trailers. There are some gorgeous flowy clothing in the film. Yes I have scene from some others that there is a Attack on Titan(AOT) resembleance in the style the clothes were drawn in, No I have NOT scene this anime yet. to my eyes I don't see the resemblance But I do see a familial feel to the other films, including the Ralph Bakshi Animated Lord of the Rings films. There is also a familial feel that harkens back to Hayao Myazaki's films especially Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononke, and Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind.
The music had so many great moments. There were many a callback to the films and some new instruments that gave the film it's own feeling. Paris Paloma, known for her song Too Much Labour, performs the End song for the film "The Rider." I think she did a fantastic job. It's a very fitting song for the end of the journey we went on with this film. Holds some fun symbolism for our Hero, Héra, and her journey. Stephen Gallagher is the composer for this film, he was A sound editor for Peter Jackson films by composer Howard Shore.
It is nice seeing fresh eyes in this beloved franchise. It's also nice to note that there are several creatives who have returned from the Peter Jackson films. From having Miranda Otto Reprise her role as Eówyn (this time she is our Narrator), Using old voice recordings of the late great Ser Christopher Lee as Saruman the White, to the silly silly boys, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan as two new characters, the orcs Shanks and Wrot. These old favorites give us fans a feeling of nostalgia as we find these new and old characters thru the movie. It lends a good familial feeling to this film. And now let me gush on the new performers, We get a great and powerful King in Helm Hammerhand Voiced by the great and mighty Brian Cox (Masachika Ichimura), Our Heroine Héra voiced by young actress Gaia Wise (Fūka Koshiba), Our sexy bad-boy Wulf, A Dunlender, played by Luka Pasqualino (Kenjirō Tsuda), and a wealth of other castmates. This film is directed fantastically by Kenji Kamiyama, he is well known in the anime world for some beautiful anime. from my understanding, the Japanese cast is just as phenomenal as the English cast.
Ok so now let's see gushed about how gorgeous this is.... check, Gushed on how awesome the mix of new and old castmates are.... also check. Now on to the story itself.... So As I said above I loved this story. It was beautiful and I cannot wait to watch it again. Next time will the Japanese dub cause I am a big ole anime girlie! I love watching both versions of either a movie or a show that has an english dub and/or a Japanese dub.
so i have not watched the sub with the japanese voices yet but I thank you all for joining me on this journey! At the end of the day this is a must watch film