I note that the thread has gone off the mark, but in spite of my better judgment I want to respond to the guy who said that people in Japan aren't too interested in LOTR.

I lived in Japan for the past year, and LOTR is almost as big there as here. And I'm talking about the book as well as the movie. LOTR has been translated into dozens of languages, it's almost laughable to imagine that Kishimoto-sama wouldn't be familiar with it. That said, the comparison of the Valley of the End with the statues of the Argonath is the only one plausible to me.

And yeah, I'm reading too much into it. This is a forum, this is what we do.