History Manga / KimbaTheWhiteLion

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: All over the dang place. At first, things seem [[LighterandSofter much happier than the original series]] due to the simple fact Leo's parents are still alive... Then we learn that without going through the ordeal of losing both his parents, [[ShrinkingViolet he's not the same lion]]. Mankind has recreated the jungle willing to spare no expense. [[spoiler:Oh, it's being used as an experiment to try and manufacture "perfect" animals. Things then go into [[DespairEventHorizon total despair towards the end, when no one wants to fight the humans, because they can do whatever they want without consequence]]... until Leo decides he has enough and leads the animals on a all or nothing assault on Eternal Earth. And wins.]]

* AnachronismStew: The earliest recorded sighting of a white lion was in 1938. Kimba/Leo's ancestor in AncientEgypt, itself a geographic error as the white mutation never occurred in the Barbary lion period let alone the Barbary lions of Egypt, is portrayed as being the same color as his descendants Panja/Caesar, Kimba/Leo and Rune.

* BrokenAesop:
** Episode 14 of the 1965 anime is ''supposed'' to be an episode that teaches children racism is bad. Kimba is picked on for having white fur and called an inferior/fake lion, and much of the episode is focused on him accepting and proving himself as a real lion. The message is broken the minute the story reveals Kimba's ancestor drank a special potion that gave him super intelligence and strength, therefore making the ''entire white lion race genetically superior'' to all others by default.
** In the 1989 remake, an arc involves Kimba learning how to enforce the law of his jungle: "Animals should not fight each other." Of course, not everybody follows his rules and try to eat each other anyway, so Kimba is caught in a dilemma: either he fights to enforce the law of his jungle and breaks them in the process or doesn't fight at all and lets everyone kill each other as they please. [[spoiler:The moral we learn as the arc is concluded is that you shouldn't fight, ''at all'', even in self-defense. Meanwhile, the antagonists continue to ignore that rule and try to kill each other while Kimba refuses to stop them.]]

* DigitalDestruction: Some official DVD releases of the '66 English dub of the original series have screwed-up brightness so they are incredibly dark, and they have the audio quality of a [[SensoryAbuse broken]] [[LoudnessWar speaker]]. You can find the exact same episodes from WebSite/{{Youtube}} without either issue. These episodes were ripped from fan DVD’s that one used to be able to purchase off [[https://kimbawlion.kimba.biz/ Craig G Anderson’s Kimba fan website]] before he passed away in 2012.

* DigitalDestruction: Some official DVD releases of the '66 English dub of the original series have screwed-up brightness so they are incredibly dark, and they have the audio quality of a [[SensoryAbuse broken]] [[LoudnessWar speaker]]. You can find the exact same episodes from WebSite/{{Youtube}} without either issue. These episodes were ripped from fan DVDs that one used to be able to purchase off [[https://kimbawlion.kimba.biz/ Craig G Anderson’s Kimba fan website]] before he passed away in 2012.

* DigitalDestruction: Some official DVD releases of the '66 English dub of the original series have screwed-up brightness so they are incredibly dark, and they have the audio quality of a [[SensoryAbuse broken]] [[LoudnessWar speaker]]. You can find the exact same episodes from WebSite/{{Youtube}} without either issue. These episodes were ripped from fan DVDs that one used to be able to purchase off [[Craig G Anderson’s Kimba fan website https://kimbawlion.kimba.biz/]] before he passed away.

* DigitalDestruction: Some official DVD releases of the '66 English dub of the original series have screwed-up brightness so they are incredibly dark, and they have the audio quality of a [[SensoryAbuse broken]] [[LoudnessWar speaker]]. Oddly enough, you can find the exact same episodes from WebSite/{{Youtube}} without either issue.

* ''Jungle Emperor Leo: Hon-o-ji'' (2000): A 9 minute short film which was originally shown exclusively at the Tezuka Osamu World in Kyoto.

* CloningBlues: [[spoiler:Toto. To the point where he's blinded by rage for all of humanity.]]

* ArtisticLicenseBiology: In one episode of the 1965 series, gorillas are shown eying hungrily at a piece of meat along with carnivorous animals. Gorillas are herbivores (although they do eat insects occasionally).

* AbusiveParents: Kimba/Leo in the sequel series, at least where Rune is concerned. Leo pushes him hard and routinely shames his efforts -- eventually abandoning him in the cliffs far from home and forcing him to make it back himself. It should be noted this was never the case in the manga, where Leo actually treated Rune with kindness and respect.

* BewareTheSkullBase: The episode, "City of Gold" from the 1965 series features Kimba and his friends travelling to Dead Man's Cave, called Twin Skull Cave in the English Dub, where Kimba gets trapped with Tom and Tab and forced to explore the cave on his own. In the 1989 series, the 7th episode "Courage" features Skull Rock which is inhabited by the appropriately named Skull Rock Tribe and the plot revolves around one of the animals getting nearly sacrificed by the tribes people.

* DarkerAndEdgier: The 1980's remake series. This is probably because Osamu Tezuka – gravely ill even during preproduction – had almost no input into the remake, dying after the sixth episode was completed. In the final episode of the Japanese version, half of the main cast, including those that didn't even die in the manga, just got shot after a whole freaking 52 episodes of them appearing regularly.

* MightyWhitey: Kimba's white fur is described as a symbol that he comes from a great line of leaders. The English dub also features pro-colonial narration, stating that Africa must abandon their original culture of "voodoo masks and bongo drums" in favor of modern European ideals.[[note]]This last part was made up by the dubbers to help censor a character's death. The English dub features a piece of narration with such statements while showing a burial site, whereas there is no narration in the Japanese version and the morality of the episode is ultimately left ambiguous.[[/note]]

* ShooOutTheClowns: Inverted, Bucky and Pauly are present as [[spoiler: Kitty's dying of an unnamed plague.]] The duo alongside Dan'l Babboon can only watch on and sadly bow their heads. In general, [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness Bucky and Pauly's comedic nature gets toned down]] as the manga and 1997 movie gets darker and sadder.

* {{Vibroweapon}}: "AAAHHH, it's a saw shark!"
* VillainSong: The Black Four has one. It was considered creepy enough that NBC had it excised from the dub.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Panja sacrifices himself to save Toto, and Toto sacrifices himself to save Leo and Kenichi.]]

Of course, if someone in the western world knows of this franchise, it's likely because of its similarities to Disney's ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing'', leading to Kimba essentially becoming known as "That Japanese thing that ''The Lion King'' plagiarized." (In reality, [[PopCultureUrbanLegends the similarities don't go beyond the surface level, and the story, characters, and overall themes are very different.]]) [[note]]"Simba" is just the Swahili word for "Lion", for the record.[[/note]] And in any case: Osamu Tezuka was a huge admirer of Creator/WaltDisney, and he admitted that his work was strongly influenced by early Disney animation--so he'd probably find the similarities flattering.

* ArtisticLicenseZoology: The special portrays black panthers as a subspecies when that is hardly the case. A black panther is either a jaguar or leopard with melanism.

* [[spoiler:TheHeroDies: Kimba in the manga and in the 1997 movie, averted in every single other adaptation.]]

* LighterAndSofter: The original manga was filled with [[TearJerker some heartbreaking scenes]], [[DiabolusExMachina horrible events happening for no reason]], [[DownerEnding and one of the most infamous endings to a shonen manga ever]]. As for the anime series? It still edges into some pretty sad territory, but things don't self-destruct this time around.

** ...[[FridgeBrilliance Which actually turns out to be a plot point]] involving the [[AncientEgypt heritage]] of the White Lions to begin with. The unusual background also let NBC give Kimba super strength and vitality.

** HumansAreFlawed

* TertiarySexualCharacteristics: Averted, just like many of Tezuka's other works.
** Well, there's this one pink baby alligator named Ali who has a yellow bow. [[SubvertedTrope It's a boy.]]

** This caused some confusion when the localizers of the sequel series learned NBC's trademarks had lapsed, and attempted to go back to using the Japanese names. To try and justify it, they hinted that 'Kimba' may have been Leo's nickname when he was younger. This may have worked had a few characters not pronounced it 'Kye-mba'.
*** It also would have helped if dub Leo hadn't said that "Kimba" translated to "coward" in the language of animals, and was apparently called that when the other animals didn't trust him as a king. But to someone who has seen the original series and knows that his father chose that name, that makes no sense... ah screw it, it was the best the dubbers could come up with.