My Lion King Forum

Kopa is Simba's and Nala's cub in the unofficial but licensed Lion King books. It's well known in the fandom that the cub, though apparently retconned into being Kiara, was a male dubbed "Fluffy" and early in the script for the sequel he was named "Chaka" and had a sister named "Shani", who became Kiara once Chaka was out of the script.

Would you say they're the same entity? Even though there designs were likely very different, if Chaka was even designed?

Personally, my vision of Simba's family would be him and Nala having Kopa at the end of TLK, then Kopa getting lost/killed, possibly by Zira, and Kiara being Simba's second child =) This is all pretty much unofficial and up to fan interpretation though.

If Simba and Nala had had a cub before Kiara, wouldn't that have shown up in the dialogue somewhere? Seems like a pretty big detail to leave out

The official story of SP as I think everyone knows is that Kiara is the cub shown at the end of TLK, and is Simba's only child.

Ah. In that case, where did Kopa come from?

Are you asking where did he officially come from? If so, he officially doesn't exist. (except in TLK6NA)

I don't think they're the same entity... But nobody can know for sure.

During the conceptual phase of Simba's Pride, Chaka and Shani were designed as Simba's cubs.
Later they decided to design a cub named Kiara.
Kopa is non-existent in the Lion King movies. So you'll might see it as Kopa is from a different TLK universe

Many fans believe Simba has 2 cubs: the oldest is Kopa, the youngest is Kiara.
Disney states that Simba never had any cubs besides Kiara (I've read that once on a Lion King website)

Wasn't Shani Kiara? I've heard after Chaka was taken out they renamed Shani "Kiara".

Yep. Another name for Shani was ''Aisha''. Later, they removed Chaka and renamed the cub Kiara.