手塚プロダクション
Takayuki Matsutani, the president of Tezuka Productions which created "Kimba the White Lion", said in 1994 that "[q]uite a few staff of our company saw a preview of 'The Lion King', discussed this subject and came to the conclusion that you cannot avoid having these similarities as long as you use animals as characters and try to draw images out of them". Yoshihiro Shimizu of Tezuka Productions has refuted rumors that the studio was paid hush money by Disney and stated that they have no interest in suing Disney, explaining that "[w]e think it's a totally different story". Shimizu further explained that they rejected urges from some American lawyers to sue because "we're a small, weak company... Disney's lawyers are among the top twenty in the world!" Tezuka's family and Tezuka Productions never pursued litigation.