Lion King and Kimba controversy

Yeah, and because Kimba is so long the likelihood to find parallels to earlier or later works is pretty high.

It's not that long. At least not the manga. Chould be two, maybe three, movies. The TV-series apparently is mostly Status Quo Is God "filler". Also this is the main freaking plot-points of the first freaking story line and the main freaking characters. So yeah.

Edit: To explain further. These are not some small similarities put together from random unrelated parts. These are the central plot-points of the majority of the manga. There is a reason why I only mentioned Belladonna in fleeting and pointed out that she was just a minor villain in a single episode, even if she too has similarities with Scar. Because she is not the main villain, and does not have much to do with the part of the plot that resembles Lion King (most of the manga and the first episodes of the TV-series). Hamegg and Claw ARE and DO.

Edit2: And even if, say, just a single episode of Kimba had resembled the Lion King, that single episode would still resemble the Lion King regardless of how long or short the rest of the series is.

edited 2nd Jul '14 3:05:49 PM by painocus

The easy way to answer this question is to ask: Could anyone at the Disney company have seen the manga? Was it in distribution in the USA at the time?

From what I can gather, no, the manga has never been distributed in the USA, only the cartoon.

I'm talking about the manga because that is what I'm most familiar with. As far as I know the first few episodes of the old anime is based on first half of the manga. (And the second season is based on the second half (with a lot of filler between the beginning and the end).)

Anyways, as for your actual question: Import. It is a thing that is and was possible. Also the manga was translated to many languages other than Japanese, if not to English.

edited 2nd Jul '14 7:35:12 PM by painocus

At the time, very few stores stocked Japanese comics. I admittedly have a book on the subject from the early 80s but it was still pretty damn niche at the time. I certainly can't imagine that somebody from Disney could find a copy unless they looked really hard.

This is becoming more and more implausible...

It's not uncommon for artists, especially those in animation, to look for reference books from everywhere in the world. Manga wasn't as big and influential in the US back then, but still certainly well known enough between animation and comics connoiseurs.

edited 2nd Jul '14 7:34:53 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

The problem is that it's somewhat plausible that the people at Disney might find a volume of the original Kimba manga, though not very.

It's far less plausible that they took other parts of the story, as the above poster I was replying to alleged in one of his other posts, and grafted it onto the other to make The Lion King.

You are ignoring my first point.

And I don't see why that is implausible. Walt Disney himself apparently had contact with Tezuka. Tezuka even sent Carl Barks a new year's greeting once. And hell, there might have been Japanese people working at Disney at the time, or someone who knew any other language the manga was translated to.

Edit: Not sure what you are talking about in the second part of your post.

edited 2nd Jul '14 7:45:01 PM by painocus

That was the 60s. The Lion King was conceived at some time in the early 90s, by which time said relations with Tezuka would be pretty much forgotten at the company.

I don't think anyone who knew Japanese either conceived the project or was working on it.

edited 2nd Jul '14 7:45:16 PM by Aldo930

So you think it is more likely that all these similarities came by accident than that someone, in the massive international corporation that is the Disney company, could possibility have encountered one of the most famous works of one of the most famous international names in their field, who also was an acquaintance of multiple important members of their company, just because the work (or more specifically one iteration of the work) never was published in English?

Hell, my Spanish teacher who grew up in the US told me about how she would, when she was a little girl, go into Japanese stores and look at their comics because she liked the style. If it was not impossible for the young daughter of an underpaid, Hispanic immigrant I doubt it would be impossible for the Walt Disney company.

I personally think Occam's Razor is the best explanation.

Tezuka even sent Carl Barks a new year's greeting once.

To be fair, Barks never worked directly with Disney, but with comics editorials that got licensed the Disney franchises.

I don't see how Occam's Razor will lead you to your conclusion however. What is the simplest theory:

Theory 1:

• Someone at Disney that worked on the Lion King watched one of the Kimba TV-series, read the manga or was otherwise acquaintance with their plot and design and was inspired by it.

Theory 2:

• Every similarity is a accident that requires it's own, different explain and the massive coincident that all these (often absurdly specific) similarities should happen at once.

Fair enough.

edited 2nd Jul '14 8:22:09 PM by painocus

I've sometimes come up with ideas and names only to find that someone else came up with them long before I did.

There's an even better explanation as to why exactly the two were probably produced independent of each other:

The Disney corporation and everyone who works on it knows that works that are obviously trying to ripoff or otherwise cash in on a movie or show that people know - not a trend, per se, but a movie - will not be accepted at the box office.

Why do you think films like Ratatoing are direct-to-video? They know that they could never be in theaters; parents would recognize them as ripoffs.

And to choose a property like Kimba The White Lion to ripoff - one that was a nostalgic memory for a good heap of American kids of the 60s... it would have been too brazen to work!

Were they trying to ripoff Kimba in such a way that they ripped backstories for other characters, like you allege, and grafted them onto the main story, it would have never worked. The minute it was announced people would have known it was a ripoff.

(Disney tried to ripoff The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack when that came out by making a show called Poopdeck which was practically the same show; it never got to air, but the makers of Flapjack parodied it in their show, with the episode "Panfake.")

edited 2nd Jul '14 11:15:58 PM by Aldo930

I think it is safe to say that if Disney had used "Kimba" as base, it would have made sure that there were as few parallels as possible to ensure that the audience wouldn't notice.

First, nit-picking: "I've sometimes come up with ideas and names only to find that someone else came up with them long before I did. "

Such coincidences happens, yes, but there are so many of them at once here that I can't really believe that it being just a coincidences is the most likely answer. It is possible yes, but very, very unlikely IMO.

"Were they trying to ripoff Kimba in such a way that they ripped backstories for other characters, like you allege, and grafted them onto the main story"

Rune, Hamegg and Claw were part of the main storyline (although Rune was after the part that parallels the Lion King's plot). And Hamegg and Claw would have been more smashed together into one Composite Character rather then one of them being give the other's backstory. (Really Claw doesn't have much of a backstory and Hamegg's wouldn't work when turned into a lion. Like I said before, Scar being Simba's uncle is one of the differences. Probably the biggest one.) And it was Rune's character development, relationship with his father and a few plot elements that would have been given to Simba.

" it would have never worked. The minute it was announced people would have known it was a ripoff."

Isn't that more or less what people did? Is not the very existence of this topic proof of that?

I guess you main point is that "It is unlikely that Disney would have taken the risk had they known about the similarities before hand". I don't know if that is true. The early 90's was a different time, the fast information flow of the internet wasn't really become a mainstream commodity yet and I'm not sure if the "sue everything that somewhat resembles something you own" approach to copyright had become as omnipresent as it is now. They might have believed no one would mind.

Also the creative department being aware of the similarities, does not mean that the legal and administrative departments was. Like you said, they tried with "Poopdeck" until someone pointed it out and people started complaining. Although that is a completely different crew from the Lion King. It shows that it is possible with the framework of the Disney corporation to get something like that into production and it might have been completed was it not for the modern omnipresence of the internet.

edited 3rd Jul '14 12:34:39 AM by painocus

Really, that is a loop-hole excuse that can be used for anything:

"I think it is safe to say that if Leone had used "Yojimbo" as base, it would have made sure that there were as few parallels as possible to ensure that the audience wouldn't notice." (There are probably much better examples, but you get the idea.)

As I've said, people did know about Kimba at the time. It was a nostalgic memory for a lot of people who grew up in the 1960s.

You also allege they ripped off the manga. Why not rip off the anime? It was far more familiar.

And why, may I ask, would they graft the backstories for other characters onto the main story? It doesn't make sense.

With Poopdeck I don't think anyone pointed it out; they stopped production of their own free will. In any case I can't find any complaints about that.

edited 3rd Jul '14 8:13:53 AM by Aldo930

"As I've said, people did know about Kimba at the time. It was a nostalgic memory for a lot of people who grew up in the 1960s."

I never claimed that they didn't. (If anything you were the one who said everyone at Disney had forgotten Tezuka). If you are talking about my "maybe the lawyers/executives didn't know" remark then, ahem, you just made the claim that neither the creators nor the people in charge knew. I am only suggesting the possibility that the latter didn't catch it. (At-least not until it was to late).

"You also allege they ripped off the manga. Why not rip off the anime? It was far more familiar. "

I have already said: "I'm talking about the manga because that is what I'm most familiar with. As far as I know the first few episodes of the old anime is based on first half of the manga. (And the second season is based on the second half (with a lot of filler between the beginning and the end).)" To extrapolate: I talk about the manga because that is what I know. And as far as I am aware the anime is just the manga with lots of filler, a bigger cast and a few deaths taken out. But I have not watched the relevant part of the anime to it's completion, thus I talk about the version of the story I actually know. Like I've said repeatedly they could have been familiar with the manga or one of the anime. I just don't agree with you that it is impossible for them to have encountered the manga.

"And why, may I ask, would they graft the backstories for other characters onto the main story? It doesn't make sense."

I already -in the very post you are referring to- said that they didn't. If you are talking about Lune's plot (not backstory), which is the part of main plot for the last part of the manga, the second TV-series (although Kimba's death was removed, so I guess it plays out a bit differently there) and the 1997 film, I have already offered a possible explanation: "to give Mufasa more screen time and a more fleshed out relationship with his son". Mufasa is more like older Kimba than he is like Punja anyways. And it is not like Lune's story is not suspiciously similar to Simba's to begin with.

Sorry for my misunderstanding about "Poopdeck" then. But my point still stand, it entered some stage of production, in an age with slower information flow than now it might have gone further than it did.

edited 3rd Jul '14 9:39:28 AM by painocus

You kind of allege that they ripped it off. I'm alleging that they didn't know and came up with the idea wholly independently; these things do happen.

I said that their relations with Tezuka would have been forgotten by the time it came out because it happened so long ago and didn't have much of an impact.

The anime is basically the aftermath of what happens when Kimba takes over the kingdom. The second anime, while it had come to the USA, was only shown on Christian stations. And the manga was forty years old at the time The Lion King was made; any store that stocked Japanese manga would probably focus on newer titles.

You allege that they took Rune's character development and grafted it onto Simba. Why would they do this? I don't know.

edited 3rd Jul '14 9:40:10 AM by Aldo930

"You kind of allege that they ripped it off. I'm alleging that they didn't know and came up with the idea wholly independently; these things do happen."

I'm saying that the former is far more likely than the latter. Ultimately neither of us can know surely what actually happened.

Your statement that they "came up with the idea wholly independently" and that no-one involved knew about the similarities (apart from, apparently, Matthew Broderick), or else they wouldn't have made it so similar, requires that well no-one involved knew about the similarities. Yet you are speaking as if you think Kimba was firmly part of the popular consciousness. Wouldn't people working in animation be more likely to know about it than the average Joe? And if most people was already so aware of Kimba wouldn't it be absurd that all the people at Disney was oblivious to it?

"The anime is basically the aftermath of what happens when Kimba takes over the kingdom."

Surely they must have show him taking it back first? But like I said, I still don't think them knowing of the manga is particularly unlikely. It is even more likely if they already know the show, and they wouldn't need to read any of the languages it has been translated into to be able to understand most of what is going on.

"You allege that they took Rune's character development and grafted it onto Simba. Why would they do this? I don't know."

I already given a possibility. Another would be to put more weight and character development into the action of deciding to take back the throne. Kimba just kind of does it.

Really there is no point in having to justify why they might do this, as one can just as easily ask the question of "why would they not?". And ultimately we can not know exactly what went through their heads anyways. In stead we can only look at the similarities and decide if it is more likely that they did or that they didn't.

In some ways I'd say it is more like they gave Kimba's first plotline to Rune than the other way around...

edited 3rd Jul '14 10:17:54 AM by painocus

As I said, in a sense it was. Kimba was a nostalgic memory to a lot of people who lived through the 60s. It was syndicated on kids' TV well through the 70s. I found a document about the show dating to 1991.

Matthew Broderick remembered watching the show when he was a kid, which shows that yes, it was a part of the cultural memory.

The anime shows how he got the kingdom back. There's a part involving Kimba living in the city with human friends. Here is an episode guide, which might explain that if they were familiar with the anime, it's different enough they might not have noticed.

edited 3rd Jul '14 10:18:05 AM by Aldo930

And as it was so well know, is it not extremely unlikely that the people at Disney were unfamiliar with it?

"The anime shows how he got the kingdom back."

Ok, so what is the problem?

"There's a part involving Kimba living in the city with human friends."

Yes, that is in the manga too. I mentioned it in the summaries I made quite a few posts back, (Post #70) and paralleled it with Simba living in the jungle with Timon and Pumbaa.

"Here is an episode guide, which might explain that if they were familiar with the anime, it's different enough they might not have noticed."

Thanks. I'll have a look trough later and see how different it is from the manga.

My point being that I don't think they were outright trying to ripoff the show. The part where Kimba gets back the kingdom is only a small part of the show.

Does the sequence with Kimba and his human friends have any of the same significance as that with Simba and Timon and Pumbaa? Is anything about those two sequences the same?

That is why I stress that The Lion King resembles a part of Kimba, not all of it. It is the first and most important part however as it sets the scene for everything else that happened in the series.

"Does the sequence with Kimba and his human friends have any of the same significance as that with Simba and Timon and Pumbaa? Is anything about those two sequences the same?"

Happens on the same place in the story, serve the same function (a place of refuge for Kimba/Simba to hide in while Scar/Claw takes over his homeland), and he is saved and taken in by a male Fat and Skinny duo of a different species who raise him until he decides to return home, after which they join him and become his sidekicks.

The episode premise on the page you linked mentioned Mary, who, while she is there some of the time, doesn't really interact with Kimba in the manga. Maybe she has a bigger role here in the anime. (Edit: Anyways "oh, and there was also a girl there" isn't really that much of a difference.)

edited 3rd Jul '14 12:10:56 PM by painocus