The King of Coincidence

Rating: 10/10 (14 December 2012)

The recent release of The Lion King in 3D brought to my mind one of the most interesting cases of copying in the movie industry: Kimba, the White Lion versus Disney's The Lion King.
In one hand, "Kimba, the White Lion" was created in 1950 by Osamu Tezuka, one of the most important Japanese cartoonist. Its anime version was broadcast in 1965 in Japan and United States, being the first color animated television show created. In the other hand, "The Lion King" was released in 1994 with great success, becoming one of Disney's most important movie. Both stories are about a young lion that fights for the recovery of his lands and has to learn the responsibilities of being a king.
When Disney released "The Lion King", people from different countries found similarities between the two works, a lot of characters of "The Lion King" seemed to be almost copied from Kimba. For instance, Rafkin from The Lion King resembles to Kimba's mandrill Dan'l Baboon, also Scar in The Lion King is similar to Jamar from Kimba and both have the same dark color fur and a deformed eye. Likewise, the warthog Pumbaa looks like Kimba's Gargoyle T. Warthog. There are similar scenes as well: the King on the Pride Rock -one of the most famous images in both stories-, the betrayal of Kimba's aunt and his falling into the cliff (in "The Lion King" the scenes takes place with Simba's uncle), the stampede, the thorn patch and the image of Kimba's father among clouds.
The "San Francisco Chronicle" and "The Los Angeles Times", published articles pointing out the resemblance between the Lion King and the Japanese series. These articles focuses on Disney's affirmation of not having any previous knowledge of the Japanese show. This attitude annoyed people and fans around the world, but especially in Japan where people felt Disney overlooked Tezuka's work by plagiarizing Kimba. But, besides all the obvious similarities, Disney insisted that it never heard about Kimba, and declared that "The Lion King" was inspired by Shakespeare's plays "Hamlet" and "Macbeth".
Evidently, and considering all similarities, Japanese authors were upset with Disney's notorious inspiration of their classics. Their main claim was that Disney did not make any mention nor did any recognition to Tezuka's famous work. Tezuka's family also recognized the similarities between the two works but they decided, along with Tezuka Productions, not to start a legal process. They claimed that one of the main reasons was that Disney's and Tezuka's good personal and commercial relationship. In fact, Tezuka was a huge fan of Disney's work and at one time he had hoped to have Disney do an adaptation of Kimba.
Moreover, the definition of plagiarism includes the lack of own creativity by an artist, which is evident in The Lion King, and the failure of recognizing the material to its actual author; therefore, the most important issues addressed by the Tezuka's family and fans in general, is Disney's failure in recognizing Tezuka's work. It is clear that the Lion King has a different origin than the solely Disney's team imagination. For instance, in the book "Perspectives on Plagiarism and Intellectual Property in a Postmodern World", the author quotes Lomer and Ashmun's "The Study and Practice of Writing English", defining plagiarism as a matter of probity: "The use of another's ideas or words without due acknowledgment is known as plagiarism; it is commonly regarded as a literary theft –as inexcusable as any other kind of dishonesty' This means, Disney's fault in not recognizing or giving any credit to Tezuka's Kimba is perhaps the major problem of the whole situation with The Lion King. Moreover, if it is only considered the sequence of time and how events happened, it can be observed that the fact of taking ideas from one job already existing can be called plagiarism. Kimba was first and the Lion King second; and considering that Disney should recognize that its idea was seen before and it should cite Tezuka's work.
There are lots of evidence indicating that Disney copied Kimba such as a striking screenshot from an early presentation of "The Lion King" with a white lion cub. Also, there are so many things in common between the two stories that it is hard to believe it was just coincidence. Thus, Disney's denial of any kind of plagiarism is merely sad.
In the end, the Lion King and Kimba are both very important works. Therefore, their value would not be diminished by saying that Kimba is the inspiration of The Lion King and with just one word of recognition to its author it would have made very happy not only a whole country, but it also would have set a precedent for future plagiarists.