lord of the rings soon as manga?

tell me what thats all about:
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archive/200302/11/ 20030211p2a00m0fp013...

Is the Tolkien estate allowing this? They never allowed this before, even for a tribute short story anthology.

I believe that the manga is probably using the movie rights now held by the Saul Zaentz Company (which holds the movie production rights to LoTR).

They can't use the movie rights. The Tolkien Estate made sure *only* the movie rights went to Saul Zaentz. The Tolkien Estate still has approval on anything even remotely literary related.

The reason I am doubtful is summarized from this website <http://www.tolkien.co.uk/information/faq.asp#4>

I am writing a sequel to the Lord of The Rings. How can I get it published? answer

Copyright protection of the works of JRR Tolkien preclude any sequel. His characters and locations are also protected by copyright.

Strange, since EA has a video game out that is clearly based on the movie version of The Two Towers. Are you sure they only have the movie rights, or was this maybe negotiated separately? If so, there wouldn't necessarily be a problem with a manga based on the movies.

Also, isn't there a graphic novel based on The Hobbit?

On 12 Feb 2003, Gir Sang Drax wrote:

This may or may not fall under the license to produce RPG games dealing with LOTR (the one ICE had for the longest time, and used to make a lot of their games).

Alternatively, they may have got permission from the tolkien estate to make a game from LoTR, and then [seperately] gotten permission from the filmmakers to incorporate film-specific elements [eg, visual stuff] into the game.

Which gives the tolkien estate ultimate control, but still allows the filmmakers a slice of the merchantising action.

You are right. I checked the Zaentz website and it is pretty much everything *BUT* the Literary rights, but from what I've read about prior LotR games, they still had to negotiate terms with the Tolkien estate as well. One game found itself with the requirement to include a copy of the first book with their game.

But that wasn't creating _new_ adventures like the propose manga is.

If the manga is proposing a manga telling of LotR, that could happen as long as there are no deviations in story or abridgements. In which case, I wish them luck! That should take like 10 years or so to complete.

which game?

Yes there is. The Tolkien estate has been resistant to approving one based on Lord of the Rings, however.

Not only IS there, but it's common as dirt as well. I almost picked it up, but hell