I must admit that there are scenes in the Lion King that are simply wonderful to watch: the way the lions move can be breathtaking. The only thing that can match that for me is the opening sequence of Tezuka Productions' later effort, the Jungle Emperor Leo movie: Watching Leo (Kimba) jump from peak to peak gives me chills.

I think that the reason people got so up in arms about the Lion King/ Kimba issue is that the Disney Corporation adopted the stance "nobody in our company ever heard of Kimba before we released the movie", which is patently a lie, which is easily provable to be a lie, and which sends whatever relationship there was between the two productions into the category of a ripoff by Disney.

I talked to one of the animators who worked on Lion King. He is a BIG fan of Kimba, and has drawn some absolutely gorgeous Kimba pictures for his own pleasure. I don't think the creative people at the Disney company wanted to rip off anyone, much less a work that they admired and enjoyed themselves. I can easily believe that the corporate bigwigs and legal department include peole who had never heard of Kimba, and they have the money and power to make whatever stand they want to take, stick. And it's a position that hurts the fans; it's like re-writing history. I notice that you started your message by saying you weren't even sure you really ever saw Kimba. I have heard from a large number of people who believed that they were the only ones who remembered the show. Just think how different that would be if Disney could have admitted the source and inspiration for the Lion King.

--Previous Message--
: Even with so many clear references and
: strikingly similar images as I've noticed
: on a variety of thumbnail pics, The Lion
: King holds up on its own as an extremely
: cohesive film. Disney may have had to
: acknowledge and pay out certain rights,
: and that makes sense, but the result isn't
: so easily simplified as a "rip
: off." Unique, or stylistically
: individual, treatments upon an earlier
: subject or theme have been characteristic
: of art for millennia, and only recently
: has "originality" even been
: considered an aesthetic quality--it is
: arguable whether something truly original
: (something never appearing before)can be
: created... everything has "come
: down" in some way or other. The Lion
: King and Kimba each deserve their place.