(We kind of covered most of this in the thread
Interview with Roger Allers.) My answer is no, but that doesn't stop this
Kimba fansite from making that accusation. Don Hahn's "
The Lion King: A Memoir" and the book
DisneyWar confirmed the genesis for
The Lion King began with then-Disney studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg on an airplane trip to Europe with Roy E. Disney and Peter Schneider during the European promotional campaign for a Disney animated film. Don Hahn claims it was for
Oliver & Company in 1988, but the latter claims it was during the European campaign for
The Little Mermaid. The initial scripts for
The Lion King (one of which that was titled
King of the Beasts) written as far as back in 1990 felt very much different from what you except from the family-friendly mood of
Kimba. In short, the claim that
The Lion King began an adaptation of
Kimba has been thrown around for many years, but never with been solid backing from official sources. People throw that claim because it's easier to throw it around without doing their own homework about it and they blindly want to believe it regardless of whether it's really true or not.
[quote="Elton John"]3: simba and kimba. Not a letter swap as kimba is aboriginal for brushfire and simba is swahili for lion. But it is an odd coincidence.[/quote]
Kimba's real name is Leo from the Japanese manga and anime. The name, Kimba, came from NBC when they dubbed the anime series into English.
[quote="Elton John"]5: i read somewhere that osamu tezuka wanted disney to do a 'kimba' adaptation what with him being a huge walt fanboy, having seen bambi over 100 times.[/quote]
While it is true Osamu Tezuka was a fan of
Bambi and he met Walt himself at the World's Fair in 1964, it was Walt Disney who told Tezuka that he hoped someday he would make a project similar to
Astro Boy, not
Jungle Emperor Leo. (
source,
another source)
[quote="Elton John"]But none of this is definitive proof. If it was originally a kimba adaptation i can understand why there would be no credit given to the tezuka family from disney as disney has said that all similarities are coincidental and that the film was directly based on bambi the bible and shakespere. As far as I know, the tezuka family has not claimed that tlk was originaly supposed to be an adaptation. I remember reading that they didn't sue disney because they didn't have the money to.
None of this is definitive proof that tlk was originally a kimba adaptation that fell through because if it was wouldn't the tezuka family try to make such a claim? How does it benifit them to be so silent on the subject?[/quote]
You must have misremembered. It wasn't that the Tezuka family didn't have enough money to sue, but they claim if Disney took ideas from
Jungle Emperor Leo, Osamu Tezuka would have been pleased and decided not to sue:
[quote="
The Baltimore Sun"]Yet not everyone who admires Mr. Tezuka is upset. Takayuki Matsutani, president of Tezuka Productions in Tokyo, notes the similarities and says they have been much discussed.
"If Disney took hints from 'The Jungle Emperor,' our founder, the late Osamu Tezuka, would be very pleased by it," he says. "Rather than filing a claim, we would be very happy to know that Disney people saw Tezuka's work. On the whole, we think 'Lion King' is absolutely different from 'Jungle Emperor' and is Disney's original work."[/quote]
[quote="
The Independent"]Forty-two professional cartoonists and 116 other fans of Osamu Tezuka, the country's most famous animator, have signed a letter of complaint to Disney. It claims that The Lion King borrows heavily without acknowledgement from Tezuka's Janguru Taitei (Jungle Emperor) of the 1950s.
But the company that Tezuka founded before his death in 1989 has said it has no plans to sue Disney. The cartoonist's daughter, Rumiko, said: 'My father would have been pleased if his work influenced Disney. So we wouldn't think about a lawsuit at all.'[/quote]