Since #TheLionKing is trending again, I can finally talk about how Disney’s #LionKing is a giant rip off of Osamu Tezuka’s Jungle Emperor Leo and how unfair this billion dollar corporation treated Osamu Tezuka’s family even after his death. Buckle up here’s a fun thread.

Fun fact: The Lion King was originally an adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s Kimba the White Lion (Jungle Emperor Leo). In interviews, Roy Disney has accidentally referred to Simba as Kimba a few times and actor Matthew Broderick agreed to the film because he loved Kimba as a child.

Osamu Tezuka drew heavy inspiration for his work and art style from Disney, so them taking his property and making an adaptation of one of his works was a dream come true. The original concept was thrown around in 1988, but unfortunately Tezuka passed away in 1989 from cancer.

Disney scrapped the idea for a Kimba adaptation a little bit later, however it was still in production, though they were taking Kimba and “changing” it enough to make it their own “original” property.

The similarities between Kimba the white Lion and the Lion King are too many to count, but there’s too many to say there just coincidences. I won’t name them all but I’ll name some of the big ones. Keep in mind Kimba originally came out in 1950.

-A loud mouth bird that looks over main character
-A love interest that’s a childhood friend
-Wise sage baboon character
-An evil uncle with a SCAR ON HIS EYE
-Lion dies and later his spirit is seen in the clouds
-Shots of a lion on top of a large rock looking over the land

Kimba the White Lion and pretty much all of Osamu Tezuka’s work is massively popular in Japan, so while everyone was praising the Lion King when it came out, people in Japan were like “hey what the fuck is this.”. There were even protests by artists and animators in Japan.

Even Americans at the time noticed the similarities between Kimba and the Lion King at the time of its release. Here’s an LA times article from 1994 about it. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-07-13-ca-15117-story,amp.html

Did you know there was a Kimba movie that was in production before the Lion King? Titled “Jungle Emperor Leo”, it was believed to originally start production in 1988 but it was delayed because of Tezuka’s death and issues with budget, being released in 1997.

You know how Disney reacted? If you guessed lawsuits up the ass, you’re right! Despite the movie starting production before the Lion King and the series being decades over than the Lion King, Disney filed several lawsuits against Tezuka productions for the film.

They didn’t want it to be released in the states and of course they said it was a rip off of their creation. Osamu Tezuka’s family was like “hey like didn’t you fucking steal from Tezuka and make billions off his idea?” to which Disney replied by eventually dropping the lawsuit.

You’re probably thinking, “Why didn’t Osamu Tezuka’s family try to sue Disney?”. Let me answer that with another question, have you ever tried to sue a billion dollar corporation with the best lawyers in the world? It’s almost fucking impossible.

In conclusion, Disney does not care about small creators or companies. They can easily steal your ideas and make millions more off your own idea and you can’t do a fucking thing since they will once buy out the entire world. Fuck you Disney.