Kovu and Kiara's 4 cubs - Potential SP concept art

[AkaiLioness]

Original link Lion King wiki article by HoneyFur -> https://lionking.fandom.com/f/p/4400000000002476283

Not sure if anyone's made a post about here (seemingly not?), but quite recently this image has been shared around online. The description reads:

[i]A user on our Discord recently uploaded this piece from an Instagram user who is claiming it to be official Simba's Pride concept artwork of Nunka, Shani, and their cubs. However, since we don't have an official source to verify its legitimacy, we can't add it to the articles. I can't personally find anything online to confirm its authenticity, but I figured I'd ask if anyone else knows where it originated.[/i]

As many of you know, Nunka and Shani are the original names for Kovu and Kiara before they split Kovu and Nuka into 2 different characters and went through many other choices until they settled on Kiara for her name. So technically speaking, this would imply that at one point in the movie they'd show Kovu and Kiara with 4 cubs until that was scrapped. This is entirely speculation though, and for now we cannot verify if this image is truly official, but from the concept/storyboard artstyle that I've seen, it does seem likely to some degree. What do you guys think? If anyone has any idea about its authenticity, feel free to share what you think.

(Many thanks to Wolf-Chalk on deviantArt for sharing this with me).

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EDIT:

If you click on the link you'll find that someone has already found more information about the drawing in particular. From what I understand, it's not really their 4 cubs, just 4 random cubs in the pride that decided to ask Kovu to share his meat with them.

[TheLionPrince]

Oh wow! This is so cool. I hate that I missed out on the eBay bidding for the "Simba's Pride" script. It had one of Kiara's original names, Aisha, and it may have some unused story ideas unbeknownst to the fandom, which would have useful to share on TLK Fandom. Also, it's cool to know that "Nunka" was never an early name for Kovu as originally reported in the trade magazine Variety (https://variety.com/1996/voices/columns/blackout-awakens-at-miramax-hammer-hit-1117466917/).

Nunka was an odd name that it has no translatable meaning in Swahili, which is contrary to the other names like Kovu, Zira, and Nuka.

[SimbasGuard]

Assuming that Nunka was changed to Nuka I find it interesting that The Article said Nunka was The Son Of Scar. Although the same Article said that Simba and Scar were Brothers (and the article was reporting of Pre-Producton rumblings). So it proves nothing.