What The Kimba Controversy Reveals About Disney Originality When The Lion King was released in Japan, over 400 Japanese animators and cartoonists signed a letter urging Disney to acknowledge and credit Kimba.
Disney insists to this day that The Lion King’s biggest influence was Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Mushi Production, the company behind Kimba, never initiated any legal action against Disney for the similarities, and Tezuka Production stated that Osamu Tezuka, as a big Disney fan, would have been honored that his work had influenced the company. I didn't really know anything about it, but I didn't really care." So I kept telling everybody I was going to play Kimba. "I thought he meant Kimba, who was a white lion in a cartoon when I was a little kid. Matthew Broderick, the voice of adult Simba, admitted that he thought he'd been hired for a remake or project that was directly related to Kimba the White Lion in some way. RELATED: Why The Lion King’s Mouth Movement Looks So Unsettling Animators Tom Sito and Mark Kausler, who both have story credits, admitted to being fans of Kimba and had assumed many of their colleagues were too since it was such a part of their own childhoods. Both Minkoff and co-director Roger Allers have claimed that they were unfamiliar with Kimba while working on The Lion King, a point that has left many experts skeptical. The Lion King co-director Rob Minkoff dismissed such criticisms in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, saying that it was "not unusual to have characters like a baboon, a bird or hyenas" in a story set in Africa. The Similarities Between The Lion King & Kimbaĭisney were criticized almost immediately following the release of The Lion King for unavoidable similarities to Kimba. Kimba has been remade a number of times in Japan and the original anime was regularly shown on American television.
KIMBA THE WHITE LION 1965 HOW TO
The lion's share of the series follows him growing up in the jungle with his mismatched friends and learning how to become a true leader like his father. After a storm wrecks the ship and kills everyone on board, Kimba is forced to swim to dry land and find a new home. Kimba tells the story of a young cub, born on a ship after his mother was trapped by hunters and his father killed. The manga was the creation of Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy and writer who is often referred to as "the father of manga." Tezuka was heavily inspired by Walt Disney during his formative years and was frequently compared to the American mogul, to the point where he was even called Japan's equivalent of Disney. Kimba the White Lion is an anime that ran on Japanese television from 1965 to 1967, based on the manga of the same name that was serialized in Manga Shōnen magazine from 1950 to 1954. er, I mean Simba!”) The problems were made all the worse by how Disney heavily marketed the film as their first true “original” movie, meaning it wasn’t an adaptation of a fairy-tale or classic story in the manner of their most iconic movies. Even The Simpsons poked fun at it in one episode ( “You must avenge my death, Kimba. The accusations of plagiarism have haunted the film since its release. It didn't take long for fans to note striking similarities between The Lion King and the 1965 anime series Kimba the White Lion. Once the film broke box office records and won rave reviews from critics, the controversy didn’t stop there. Production was troubled and executives at Disney were convinced their safest bet for success was Pocahontas, which was being made at the same time. However, when it was first in production, nobody could have predicted how huge The Lion King would be. RELATED: The Lion King Review: Disney's Remake Adds More Style Than Substance Suffice to say, The Lion King is a very big deal. The remake, featuring cutting-edge photorealistic CGI and an all-star cast, is tracing to gross between $150 - 170 million in its opening weekend.
KIMBA THE WHITE LION 1965 TV
Thanks to various sequels, TV shows, merchandising, and assorted materials, The Lion King has endured not only as one of Disney’s most beloved icons but one of the true titans of entertainment. The Broadway adaptation, which is the third-longest running musical in Broadway history, has grossed over $8.1 billion worldwide, meaning it is the highest-grossing entertainment property ever. The 1994 animated movie had the number two box office spot of the year and in the decades since has continued to grow to take the spot as the year's highest earner, the top-grossing traditionally animated film of all time, and the best-selling film on home video. Over the course of 25 years, The Lion King has become one of the highest-grossing properties in all of pop culture. With the release of the live-action remake of The Lion King, Disney animation fans have once again been reminded of the Kimba the White Lion controversy.