Thursday, May 9, 2013

A Silmarillion Ring?

So, sometimes bits and pieces of British and American fantasy and/or horror can wind up in anime, sometimes in unusual ways --as in the final episode of of the PRINCESS RESURRECTION manga, where two minor characters are shown having tea in a cafe with a Lovecraft-themed name. Or in the latest of the BOOK GIRL novels, where the main character has a dream about the Book Girl turning into Dagon. As I said, odd. And that's not even taking into account the schoolgirl/harem series about Nyarlathotep.

That said, one of the strangest came up recently in a little one-off called Little Witch Academia, a sort of TWEENY WITCHES revisited.

The Tolkien reference comes the 10.19 point, not quite the half-way mark. Some student witches are exploring a labyrinth beneath the witch-school, with whichever witch who brings back the best loot before the deadline winning. One team is far in the lead, having already found

"a mithril mail, a galvorn knife, even a silmarillion ring"

Mithril mail is pure Tolkien -- we even know they got it direct and not via DandD because hey, they spelled it right.

Galvorn knife I didn't catch, and assumed it was something from some video game. My bad; looking it up, I see it's Tolkienian as well, this being the black metal Eol made. No one can remember every detail, but guess it's time I re-read the SILMARILLION again.

The 'Silmarillion ring' is interesting, because they seem to have a Ring of Power mixed up with a Silmaril. I hate to think what the power of uniting a Silmaril with a Ring of Power wd have been, so I'm glad it only occurs as a throwaway line in an anime. It does give the whole passage a sort of 'throw things at the wall in a jumble' sort of fell, though.


Anyhow, the show is amusing fluff; here's the clip, if you'd like to see it for yourself. Thanks to Janice for the link):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RBlqxEIJ_Cg#!

--JDR

1 comment:

Al said...

Fascinating! (btw, just wanted to let you know that your blog is great and to keep up the great work.)