Lion King ripped from manga

I remember a while ago when I was at an anime store, I saw Kimba the White Lion on the shelves and was thinking to myself, "Wow that must be some sort of low-quality rip of The Lion King". I never expected that it would be the other way around. And I'm sure lots of other people were thinking the same way which is totally unfair.

Kimba the White Lion was the first Japanese animated series aired on television from the 60's based on a manga that started in the 50's by Osamu Tezuka. Much controversy has been stirred over the fact that Disney's Lion King has taken a lot of material from the series, given no proper credit and even denied having used the material even though it's painfully obvious.

If they hadn't denied it. If they had just come out and said they were making a remake of Kimba the White Lion, they wouldn't be in all the trouble they're in now. But they were too full of themselves, so they had to make it "based on an original story".

Did the Disney studio steal Kimba The White Lion and rework it as their "original story", The Lion King? They certainly give that impression with their corporate stance ("we never heard of Tezuka nor Kimba until after The Lion King was released"). And why would they have filed suit to try to prevent the showing of Tezuka Productions' 1997 Jungle Emperor Leo movie at the 1998 Toronto FantAsia Film Festival? (Jungle Emperor was the original title for Kimba The White Lion.) It seems quite simple; Kimba had been kept out of sight in North America for 20 years by that time. And once you can see the two together...

- Kimba the White Lion

What happens when a popular American company steals countless scenes, lines, characters and plots from a Japanese company? And why hasn't this been made public? Why can Disney walk all over them and try to convince the world they actually make up their own material? I want everyone to know Disney's a big lying, cheating fraud!



Here are some of the similarities I took a lot of notice to.

Kimba: Main character is named Kimba
Lion King: Main character is named Simba

Kimba: Original title was Jungle Emperor (1950)
Lion King: Original title was King of the Jungle (1993)

Kimba: Kimba's mother dies and comes back to help him move forward in the stars/clouds
Lion King: Simba's father dies and comes back to help him move forward in the stars/clouds

Kimba: Features a stampede
Lion King: Features a stampede

Kimba: Features a thorn patch
Lion King: Features a thorn patch

Kimba: Wise mandrill (baboon-resembling creature) as mentor
Lion King: Wise baboon as mentor


Kimba: White lion
Lion King: Originally a white lion in 1993, changed later


Kimba: Kimba has a tuft of hair in the middle of the head and dark rimmed ears
Lion King: Simba has a tuft of hair in the middle of the head and dark rimmed ears

Kimba: Antagonist is Kimba's aunt
Lion King: Antagonist is Simba's uncle




^ Notice the bird in the right hand corner


Lots and lots more here. And if you need proof for the above statements. Please check it out!!
Full Analysis, Pictures, Comparisons, Facts, Links
Character Resemblences
Still Frame Comparisons

Errrr. Disney is so hypocritical!!

Wow I never even knew about it, Disney's my number 1 inspiration as an artist, who knew they'd rip off an idea done by a fellow artist many years ago , great research Katt

I grew up watching Kimba and recently rented the whole series from Netflix for my daughter to see.

I hadn't thought about it before, it does appear there are a lot of parallels.

But to play devil's advocate, there's only so much one can do with a story of a lion king in Africa, so it might just be a case of nothing new under the sun, instead of outright plagiarism.

the story could have even started way before the japanese series "kimba" this could be a very old tale/legend like most of the disney cartoon movies are

the Lion King and Kimba could both be ripping this off from some old african legend or something

^ Well.. Lion King admitted that they based some their works off the story of Hamlet. If they could do that, don't you think they would admit it if they based it on an African legend? They didn't want to admit they stole the works from Kimba because they knew they'd lose lots of money, but who would sue them for ripping off Hamlet or an old African legend?

reply to post by Paresthesia

You're right about that Katt, Disney doesn't want to lose any money or it's established fan base over that, they wanna be the originators of ideas and plots.

Originally posted by Paresthesia
^ Well.. Lion King admitted that they based some their works off the story of Hamlet. If they could do that, don't you think they would admit it if they based it on an African legend? They didn't want to admit they stole the works from Kimba because they knew they'd lose lots of money, but who would sue them for ripping off Hamlet or an old African legend?

Touché, I didn't really take how similar the pictures are into consideration either. Especially the one on Simba on Pride Rock.

How come there was never any disputes or law suits about this?

Originally posted by The Phantom
How come there was never any disputes or law suits about this?

It was about honour, something Disney seems to have lost.



Mighty honourable of them Japanese.

This is probably why you don't hear much about it in the media.

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Really good thread P.

Tales as old as time and all that. I'm sure this story had to have come from Africa at some point. Japan and the US have or rather did have very different styles of animation, now I feel the lines are becoming blurred, which is a shame! Maybe someone felt the story needed reanimating to work in a westen country. How many versions are there of the Little Mermaid?. Once the original Author has been dead for 50 years (as far as my understanding goes) then it's a free for all. If the Manga Dude wrote the story then my hat is off to him because it's a beautiful story. But it's not all that likely is it?

If the Manga people had wanted to make something of this they have had ample oppotunity. They haven't. So with the greatest of reaspect to all concerned!

Let sleeping lions lie!

MonKey