/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

Japanese nerds love sword and sorcery shit, don't they?

Japan has lots of anime, manga, hentai, and video games with western fantasy settings after all.

So why don't they like Tolkien? The only Tolkien related fan art I've seen on pixiv is tracings of characters from the Peter Jackson films.

And what's up with that?

[Anonymous No.]

Who said I don't like both?

[Anonymous No.]

A Wizard of Earthsea must be somewhat popular over there, on account of it being animated by Studio Ghibli.

Why is there no love for the man who established all of high fantasy's tropes?

[Anonymous No.]

Funny, about ten minutes ago I was considering making an off-topic thread about LotR:

What would Tolkien think of the Peter Jackson movies if he lived to see them?

I'm not asking /lit/ or /tv/, because all my friends are here.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733335
Shut up you're not Japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

No cute lolis in it.
Only creepy short men.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733341
Say that all you want, but you'll never crush my Japanese spirit.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733338
He'd hate them, just like his son Christopher hates them.

They're not bad films over all but there are parts that really piss off Tolkien nerds, and they would piss off Tolkien too.

[Anonymous No.]

it's because they imported the settings without understanding the context in which it was developed. it's like Japanese developers played some roguelikes and then decided to make their own, with each new generation further developing away from the source until we have the JRPG of today.

same thing if westerners started making shmups featuring lolis as main characters and called it touhou-style

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733334
There was no Earthsea anime.

Ursula K. Le Guin agreed, don't bother her about it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733333
epic quints brah

[Anonymous No.]

didnt the ladey in genshiken say she liked lord of the rings when someone was cosplaying as an elf
it gave the impression that lotr was cool in japan but dressing up as weird elfs wasnt

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733347
You mean like how the new Star Trek movie pisses off long-time Star Trek nerds, even though it was a good movie?

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733338
and at once I knew I was not magnificent. strayed above the highway aisle.


and I could see for miles, and miles, and miles.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733358
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1eFdUSnaQM
lel

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733344
well this is not fair there are tall bearded dudes and effeminate elfs too

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733364
People are too harsh on this scene. This is just how people fought in the sixties. Look at any other sci-fi serial and you'll see.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733371
http://youtu.be/lzmnPs64K74

Sci-fi has gone downhill since the good old days.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733358
Not quite. There are many parts of the live action films that are just wrong, wrong, wrong.

Like how Eowyn was thrown into that bullshit love triangle with Aragorn and Arwen, and her character was completely bastardized in the process.

And the ghosts being at the Battle of Pelennor Fields. And the Elves being at Helm's Deep.

And Sauron being an evil lighthouse.

And Frodo telling Sam to go home.

And uh what else...

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733375
>And Sauron being an evil lighthouse.

Better than some faggy wizard galloping through a forest, nerd.

I bet you're upset that Tom Bombadil was cut too, you fag.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733375
No Tom Bombadil and the barrow ghosts.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733357
If LotR is cool in Japan then why is this the only piece of LotR related artwork I found on pixiv that wasn't traced from Jackson's movies?

It's Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul, by the way.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733379
Sauron isn't a wizard.

He's a Maia. As far as physical appearance goes, he looks like whatever he wants.

Oh and the wizards are technically Maiar too but they've been locked into the forms of wizened old men.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733354
I have heard that it was quite awful.

If it existed, that is.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733380
>No Tom Bombadil and the barrow ghosts.

Which meant no Arnorian blades for the Hobbits. Which means that Merry never popped the Witch King's invincibility bubble by cutting his heel.

And so everyone thinks that the Witch King had a magical vulnerability to women.

[Anonymous No.]

The novels were boring as shit.

"And then Frodo and his company walked through the fields, walking and walking with some occasional rambling to lighten the mood."
And just as you're getting sick of walking and wishing they'd do something else:
"They walked through the Fields of Elsnwor, where the Great Kings of the Old Age formed the Council of Tismuth during the Seventh Era of Llenwir VII, in conjunction with the Order of the Great Elves, to form a House in which blah blah blah blah politics backstory made-up fantasy words."

I read it when I was about 15 (before the movies came out) so maybe I'm being a little harsh on it, but it seriously laid the lore on too thickly for my taste. I get it, Tolkien: you're a great linguist and you fleshed this all out. Stop shoving it in my face. If I wanted to learn history, I'd rather learn the real world's.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733347
>just like his son Christopher hates them
Eh?

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733399
>I'd rather learn the real world's.

are you some kind of nerd or shit

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733403
> In 2001, he received some attention for his stance toward The Lord of the Rings film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson. He expressed doubts over the viability of a film interpretation that retained the essence of the work, but stressed that this was just his opinion. He voiced sharper criticism in a 2012 interview with Le Monde: "They gutted the book, making an action film for 15 to 25-year-olds."
http://middle-earth.xenite.org/2001/12/09/more-from-christopher-tolkien-on-lotr-movies/

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733403
Christopher Tolkien, the youngest son of J. R. R. Tolkien, and the world's most preeminent Tolkien scholar, hates Jackson's movies.

In his words "They gutted the book, making an action film for 15 to 25-year-olds."

Christopher Tolkien is the guy who edited together the Silmarillion and the Histories of Middle-earth and the Book of Lost Tales and whatnot, by the way.

See, the only books that the elder Tolkien actually published during his lifetime were The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Christopher took all of his dad's unpublished notes and stories and edited them together.

[Anonymous No.]

I loved The Hobbit but hated The Lord of the Rings.

Maybe it's because I've always had the reading capability of a 10-year-old.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733399
>Stop shoving it in my face. If I wanted to learn history, I'd rather learn the real world's.
If you don't like fictional history, then LotR is obviously not for you. That doesn't mean there's a problem with his writing.

[Anonymous No.]

When they become public domain, someone should "translate" the LOTR books into modern English and remove all the filler/lore.

[Anonymous No.]

I hope that you aren't looking forward to The Hobbit movies /jp/.

Because they're going to suck. All three of them.

Jackson is going to be padding the run time by including all of this stuff that Tolkien never wrote much about. Stuff about Sauron hiding out in Dol Guldur and so forth which Tolkien just gave a brief summary on in the LotR appendixes.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733433
My opinion is worth far more than literary critics' or the general public's.

[Anonymous No.]

Have the books even been translated to Japanese? You'd think it would be a pretty tough task since Japanese is such a primitive language. Imagine the amount of katakana one would have to use.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733421
Kind of sounds like he's mad he didn't pursue the film's production himself.

His comment is much like the type of comment you'll get if you ask /jp/ about Katawa Shoujo, something that was originally ours but taken and molded to the standards of others, then ending up "critically acclaimed" (or perhaps "it's popular therefore it's good") by the new fans.

[Anonymous No.]

I think I've seen some doujin porno about LotR. Shouldn't be too mainstream but it does exists.

[Anonymous No.]

Holy fuck, you guys are nerds.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733442
Forty years ago.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733437
It's obvious it was stretched out to three movies to make more money, but so what? He's writing his own interpretations of events from the Mdidle-earth legendarium. At least he's being respectful enough to base it on his writings rather than "WOULDN'T IT BE COOL IF SAURON HAD A LASER FIGHT WITH GANDALF?"

Though he is shoehorning cameos from the original LoTR trilogy cast in there, and I am very worried as to how that's going to work. I have a terrible feeling he's going to do the whole Star Wars prequels thing. Like at the Battle of the Five Armies a human and a young elf will team up, and the human will say, "You're doing good with that bow kid, what's your name?" "Legolas. And yours?" "Aragorn. I'm also going to name my children and grandchildren Aragorn. And also I'm played by the guy who played Aragorn."

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733442
They have been translated yeah.

And as I recall they split the book into nine or so parts, because Japanese people don't like big books I guess. Actually neither does anyone in the West apparently, that's why LotR was split into a trilogy when Tolkien always wanted it to be a single book.

Was 1Q94 split into lots of smaller books?

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733454
breaking news

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733454

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733453
In my quest to find Japanese fan art of Tolkien writings I came across a lot of Hobbit yaoi.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733445
I really doubt he was ever particularly interested in a film adaptation. And it's not about money, because he already sued the HELL out of New Line Cinema.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733467
He sued them...for money...because he never got the royalties...that he wanted when he signed away the rights

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733475
Hey Mugen, which book was your favourite?

[Anonymous No.]

I liked the cartoon best. It would be cool if some Japs made an anime, but I doubt anyone could pull it off tastefully.

[Anonymous No.]

I've heard that Sauron is going to be raising the dead in the Hobbit movies.

Because he was disguised as "the Necromancer" while hiding out in Dol Guldur, see.

But of course before D&D existed necromancy had fuck all to do with raising the dead, and everything to do with communicating with the dead.

And more generally it was a term applied to practitioners of evil magic, because disturbing the dead in order to talk to them is all kinds of evil.

I'm going to nerd rage hard if these rumors are true.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733486
The Rankin/Bass films were pretty neat. Especially the songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMhY59n7X-Y

[Anonymous No.]

Lord of the Rings started the genre but the genre changed and grew quickly.

The Lord of the Rings movies are more like standard fantasy flicks than actually Lord of the Rings.
The reason why Lord of the Rings was so popular was because it let people fully sink into another world. It wasn't about generically fucking around, they were exploring a world deep with history and magic.

They can never adopt it honestly because the novels were written with a different type of pacing and maturity in mind. You need to be at least 50 or so to truly appreciate how they talk things out.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733496
and of we can't forget this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdXQJS3Yv0Y

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733485
I have a question about this: did Tolkien intend the Necromancer to be Sauron from the start? I know he planned his mythos for a long time, and he had some publishing troubles, but there were a lot of "oh by the way..." bits in Lord of the Rings. Such as a +2 Ring of Invisibility suddenly being the most important thing in the world, and goblins becoming orcs. I know these things were explained (and explained pretty well), but I get the feeling there were outside influences at play here.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733497
>You need to be at least 50 or so to truly appreciate how they talk things out.

The books were actually pretty popular with kids when they were first published, which pissed Tolkien off.

He was somewhat of a stuffy intellectual.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733486
This post made me cringe because japan has no integrity.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733508
It does, you just choose to ignore it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733507
He was really that surprised that a sequel to a children's book was enjoyed by children? What a baka.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733504
The Hobbit was sort of retconned when Tolkien wanted to publish LotR. I'm not even sure if "the Necromancer" was even in the original volume of The Hobbit at all.

Tolkien retconned the book in a pretty clever way though.

See, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings exist in Middle-earth as portions of the Red Book of Westmarch.

When Bilbo originally wrote about his adventures in the Red Book, he lied about the part when he got the ring.

In the Fellowship, Gandalf tells Frodo about how he discovered the truth from Bilbo. And so the Red Book's real world counterpart was changed to reflect this new information.

[Anonymous No.]

Should I read The Hobbit instead of LoTR if I have the intellect of a 7 years old girl but want to read something by Tolkien anyway?

[Anonymous No.]

You will never hang out with J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and Owen Barfield, drinking ale in an Oxford pub and making fun of writers who are worse than you.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733533
Yes, it's far more immediately enjoyable. And you should read it first anyway, because it's the first one.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733461
>Japanese people don't like big books I guess. Actually neither does anyone in the West

Hary poter

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733526
> I'm not even sure if "the Necromancer" was even in the original volume of The Hobbit at all.

That would make sense. It felt sort of out of place that Gandalf kept bringing that up. Though how was his absence explained, otherwise?

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733526
Oh and Goblin is just a synonym of Orc.

Tolkien basically invented the word "Orc" but he didn't use it at the time he wrote The Hobbit.

Oh and also, it's important to note that Tolkien's legendarium was a work in progress. Things changed all the time.

For instance, originally Tolkien wrote that the Orcs were animated by Morgoth from bits of mud and filth.

Later, he decided that Morgoth could not actually create his own life, and he wrote that the Orcs were the decedents of Elves twisted by Morgoth through torture and evil magics and whatnot.

[Anonymous No.]

This is a great example of /jp/ having some light-hearted, off-topic discussion. And you know what? One of our janitors is going to delete it.

[Anonymous No.]

I hate how I can't read more than a few pages of a book, but I can read /jp/ for twelve hours a day.

Your shitposts are more entertaining to my brain than a classic work of high fantasy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733445
I love the assumptions you are so discreetely throwing in your post.

[Anonymous No.]

[Anonymous No.]

Is there any particular edition of these books that I should buy? I'm kind of anal about consistency.

[Anonymous No.]

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733460
No way Aragorn was involved in any of this. He was busy wandering the deserts fighting dragons. If he was avaliable, he would've helped gandalf and the dwarves right from the start and there would be no need for Bilbo to tag along.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733583
Get LotR in a single volume, the way that Tolkien always want it to be.

But books with the cover art he drew himself are pretty neat too.

Tolkien made some pretty neat artwork.

[Anonymous No.]

>Tolkien is among the most famous and prolific of conlangers. He constructed – to varying degrees of detail – more than twenty languages, each with a unique grammar and vocabulary.

>Constructed languages used in Tolkien's fictional universe:

>The Elvish language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language. The family was constructed from c. 1910. Tolkien worked on it up to his death in 1973. He constructed the grammar and vocabulary of at least fifteen Elvish languages and dialects: Primitive Quendian the proto-language, Common Eldarin, Quenya, Goldogrin, Telerin, Sindarin, Ilkorin, Nandorin, Avarin.

>The languages of Men of Middle-earth were many, but most were only alluded to by Tolkien. He developed at least three with a grammar and a vocabulary: Taliska, Adûnaic, and the Soval Pharë ('Common Speech'), called Westron in English, spoken by Hobbits and Men in the Third Age. Other Mannish languages which were less developed included: Dalish, Rohirric (represented by Anglo-Saxon), Rhovanion (represented by Gothic), Haladin, Dunlendish, Drûg, Haradrim, and Easterling.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733608
>The secret language of the Dwarves: Khuzdul. They also used a sign language called Iglishmêk.

>The language of the Ents: Entish.

>The language of the "Powers" or Valar: Valarin.

>The language of the Orcs of the First Age created for them by Morgoth.

>The Black Speech, created by Sauron for his "empire".

>The many languages of the Orcs of the Third Age, often incorporating debased forms of words from the Black Speech and other languages.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733614
>Tolkien not only invented many languages but also scripts. He was a talented penman. Some of his scripts were designed for use with his constructed languages, others for more practical ends: to be used in his personal diary, and one especially for English, the New English Alphabet.[8]

>List of known scripts devised by Tolkien, in chronological order:

>Tengwar of Rúmil or Sarati

>Gondolinic Runes

>Valmaric script

>Andyoqenya

>Qenyatic

>The New English Alphabet

>The "Goblin alphabet" (in The Father Christmas Letters)

>Tengwar of Fëanor

>The Cirth of Daeron

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733333
I don't think that "sword and sorcery shit" is Otaku at all.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9734472
Every Jrpg isn't otaku related?

[Anonymous No.]

My secret hope is that with it now three movies The Hobbit will be chock full of Silmarilion backstory.
-The black blade that slew Glaurung, Father of Dragons and the black arrows that slays Smaug.
-Gandalf as Maiar meeting a young Galadriel in The West (the trailer seems to hint at it).
-Pretty Sauron at the Fall of Numenor, or pretty Sauron in general. I know Cumberbunt is a big deal in Popoverville and everything but his face is just too damn pretty not to be used for Sauron's beguiling "true" form.

I do wish there was more good modern Silmarilion fan art, or Silmarilion art in general, shit is loaded with epic scenes.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733333
>So why don't they like Tolkien?
He not grorious japanese

[Anonymous No.]

>>9734489
I think randomly showing bits of Silmarillion would be confusing as fuck to people who haven't read it.

[Anonymous No.]

Well they seemed to like the movie versions enough to make gold like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq-djr2b65Y&feature=related

[Anonymous No.]

>>9734489
Gurthang doesn't have anything to do with the black arrow the killed Smaug silly goose.

And I think that the meeting of Galadriel and Gandalf in the trailer has something to do with both of them being in the White Council.

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733382
http://www.pixiv.net/search.php?s_mode=s_tag&word=%E6%8C%87%E8%BC%AA%E7%89%A9%E8%AA%9E

[Anonymous No.]

>>9733369
Yes. Tolkien was way ahead of his time. His magnum opus embodies the enlightened philosophical system of eschewing the female presence in favour of pure manly honour and brotherly love, mixing in elves who dress like traps. His vision will find the recognition it deserves once Japan finishes their obsession with cute lolis and moves to cute traps.

[Anonymous No.]

Tolkien is shit.

[Anonymous No.]

Who the fuck was Bard, and why did he suddenly save the day? Was he Tolkien's son or girlfriend who wanted a self-insert character or something?