Rip-Off

[InsaneAstroBoyLover]

Yeah i bet someone already started a thread on this by now.
BUT THIS NEEDS TO BE DISCUSSED.
Whenever I look up Kimba/Leo I always see this picture.

OMFG. I cant stop seeing this picture in my head.

It just feels like Tezuka and his fans were Cheated out of fame.
JUST REMEMBER HOW POPULAR THE LION KING WAS. and then remember kimba. hmy: :d oh:
We Need to DO SOMETHING!!!


OH MY FREAKING GOD.




And Disney said its ALL Coincidence. Do they reeeeeeealy think we were born yesterday?!? I mean COME ON DISNEY. I thought you were better than that. They stole a GREAT MASTERPIECE and GOT AWAY WITH IT.



Truthfully I believe this is some hardcore evidence.

I'll Get a Lawyer.

Edit: Oh, and I forgot to tell you, which is the WHOLE reason i started the thread, My friend Marrissa and i went to the mall. We go to FYE and go look at all the DVDs.In this dvd section she spots "Kimba the White Lion" DVD. She than points it out to me and states, " What a cheap Asian rip off of the Lion King!"

I've Had It. Me and her fought for an hour in FYE as i tried to explain to her that the Lion king is the rip-off and not Kimba.

[avatargirl]

HI- I LOVE KIMBA the white lion- but please let those two be friends

[Fauna]

There's even a concept art picture I've seen that has two lions playing in a tree-lined area, with one lion being white. There's definitely a blatant "inspiration" from Kimba in the Lion King, but they took way too much to get away with.

In the mid-nineties, there was a bit of a backlash from Japanese Tezuka fans urging Disney to credit Tezuka as being an inspiration, but Disney didn't listen to them.

[Astro Forever]

I really don't think it is a coincidence either.

I have great memories of Kimba!

[MightyAstro]

I think if Tezuka had been alive at the time of The Lion King he would have wanted to settle things in a cool, calm and collected manner.

I really can't imagine him making a huge outcry wanting to sue the Disney Company. He was, after all, a huge admirer of Walt Disney.

[Dr. Jerk]

*Sigh* Old news. This is the kind of stuff that we had always known, it's been around for like, forever.

I too used to angrily call Lion King a blatant rip-off, but I guess it's mostly because I was influenced by a biased Kimba fansite (no offense to them). Nowadays I don't mind the Lion King and Kimba, although I'm still not fond for what Disney did.

And please, expecting to do something? People tried. Don't even waste your breath on doing such a thing.

[atoms_gf]

i hear you. i used to be a fan a real big fan of the lion king; i used to watch it like 4 time in a row..but...my mom was also i big fan of kimba the white lion and so she never mensioned it to me until i kept on seeing kimba vidios at op shops and alas; i said to my mom "hey..mom did you know about this??" and she said yes and then she said want me to buy it for you?? o_0 she did anyway so i have both vidios of lion king, lion king || and limba the white lion (episode freind in deed i think.) but anyway there not the same but both truley wonderful and since lion or cats are my favourite animals im a fan of both. as to what you are saying insaneastroboylover--disney copies some stories made by other artists but usully only after the artist's death. other companys do this too, like Roald Dahl's fantastic mr. fox got copied ofter hes death..

[Androids101]

From Wikipedia:

The Lion King was the first Disney animated feature to be an original story, rather than being based on an already-existing story.[4][10] The filmmakers have said that the story of The Lion King was inspired by the Joseph and Moses stories from the Bible and William Shakespeare's Hamlet.[4] However, certain elements of the film, bear a resemblance to a famous 1960s Japanese anime television show, Kimba the White Lion.[55] One similarity is the protagonists' names: Kimba and Simba, although the word "simba" means "lion" in Swahili.[56] Many characters in Kimba have an analogue in The Lion King and various individual scenes are nearly identical in composition and camera angle. Matthew Broderick, the voice of Simba, believed initially that he was in fact working on a remake of Kimba, since he was familiar with the Japanese original.[57] Early production artwork on the film's Platinum Edition DVD even includes a white lion.[58] Disney's official stance is that the similarities are all coincidental.[59]

Yoshihiro Shimizu, of Tezuka Productions, which created Kimba the White Lion, has refuted rumours that the studio was paid hush money by Disney but explains that they rejected urges from within the industry to sue because, 'we're a small, weak company. It wouldn't be worth it anyway... Disney's lawyers are among the top twenty in the world!'[60]

Christopher Vogler, in his book The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, described Disney's request that he suggest how to improve the plot of The Lion King by incorporating ideas from Hamlet.[61] It has also been noted that the plot bears some resemblance to the West African Epic of Sundiata.[62]
Alleged subliminal messaging
The supposed "S*X" frame.

In one scene of the film's original VHS and LaserDisc releases, it appears as if the word "S*X" might have been embedded into the dust flying in the sky when Simba flops down,[63] which conservative activist Donald Wildmon asserted was a subliminal message intended to promote sexual promiscuity. The film's animators have stated that the letters spell "SFX" (a common abbreviation of "special effects"), and was intended as an innocent "signature" created by the effects animation team.[64]
"The Lion Sleeps Tonight"

The use of the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in a scene with Timon and Pumbaa has led to disputes between Disney and the family of South African Solomon Linda, who composed the song (originally titled "Mbube") in 1939. In July 2004, the family filed suit, seeking $1.6 million in royalties from Disney. In February 2006, Linda's heirs reached a legal settlement with Abilene Music, who held the worldwide rights and had licensed the song to Disney for an undisclosed amount of money.[65]
Portrayal of hyenas

A number of Disney studios artists spent two days observing and sketching captive Spotted Hyenas maintained at the Field Station for Behavioural Research in the hills above the University of California's Berkeley campus. Dr. Laurence Frank, and other scientists who had organised the visit, expressed a strong request that the portrayal of the hyenas featured in The Lion King be positive. The artists responded that they would do their best to make the hyenas appear more comical than evil.[66] The resulting portrayal did not impress most hyena biologists: one hyena researcher sued Disney studios for defamation of character,[67] and in conclusion to a spotted hyena fact sheet written for African Geographic in May 2006, Dr. Frank included boycotting The Lion King as a way of helping preserve hyenas in the wild.[68] Hyena researcher Stephen Glickman wrote: "In both Hemingway and The Lion King there is an emphasis on greed, gluttony, and stupidity that is ultimately designed to be comical. This reaches its "pinnacle" when a hyena [Ed] feeds on its own body, as described in The Green Hills of Africa and in the American children's computer game based on the movie."[66]

Condemnation was also launched by film critics and cultural analysts, some of whom saw the portrayals of the hyenas as underlying a low class and that their upholding of cultural stereotypes by sporting African American (Shenzi) and Latin American (Banzai) accents, as opposed to the American and British accents of the main characters, was racist.[69][70][71] Film analyst Matt Roth described the film as a "the spadework for the ugly principles it [Disney] feels it must implant in each new generation."

And guess who is more well known? Not Kimba the Original White Lion, but The Fraud Lion King.

[Alittleacorn]

This is actually the reason why I don't like Lion King anymore, and why I hope Disney never gets a hold of any of Tezuka's creations. =_=

[Anime Girl]

Ironicly both the Kimba series and the Lion King movie were both my favorites when I was a kid. I actually never saw the resemblance until like last year. I'm a fan of both Disney and Tezuka, so I dunno where to stand here. I think that Kimba and Simba could learn to be friends, although that comic was very funny! BTW, I heard that Simba is Swahili for lion.