Topic: Kimba the White Lion

Miyamoto almost got a N64 game out with the famous manga property that was ripped off to make the Lion King.

He once said he wanted to make it a bigger game than Mario 64.

Now that he is older, he is running out of time to make his dream game based on a beloved bit of nostalgia.

Do you think they should try to make this game today? Would it sell outside of Japan? Or does Nintendo not have the charm to make such a game anymore?

Any thoughts about Kimba the White Lion possible becoming a dark horse candidate for a new Switch 2 franchise?

Would you buy it?

Never heard about it, that they wanted to make a game. I have every series and the movie. It was sold with a cute Kimba cuddly toy. Definitely interested.

The commonly repeated myth that Disney "ripped off" Kimba when making the Lion King is not really true. This article, for example, explains in detail why it's not actually a rip-off:

While Kimba the White Lion and The Lion King both have a plot revolving around young lions growing up to become strong leaders in their fathers’ steads, there’s really not much beyond said vague premise that warrants any serious scrutiny. Sure, there’s a myriad of superficially similar-looking scenes floating around and, yes, the names Kimba and Simba seem like they could practically be interchangeable, but that’s about where the comparisons cease, especially with Simba being Swahili for “Lion,” a deliberate naming choice. While Simba was briefly considered as the name for Kimba during the English localization, that’s all it is, a coincidence. And looking deeper into the facts, even those similarities are flimsy at best.

Looking more scrupulously into the details, the two are vastly different and bring their own stories to the table — Kimba the White Lion focuses on Kimba striving for harmony between humans and animals, sometimes even taking place in human civilizations and having outlandishly wacky situations, while The Lion King is grounded on the plot of Simba running away from and later facing up to his own guilt and murderous uncle. In typical Disney fashion of essentially rebranding pieces of fiction and fairy tales, it’s well-known that The Lion King is actually heavily influenced by the story of Hamlet, not Kimba.

Not only do Kimba the White Lion and The Lion King lack any actual similarities of substance, but they also often have directly opposing themes. For instance, some contrasting elements include odd takes on shying away from some harsh realities while taking others head-on. Although Kimba means well to find peace between beings of all kinds, The Lion King doesn’t shy away from highlighting the necessity of natural order. And while The Lion King doesn’t feature any humans, Kimba isn’t afraid to show the reality of poachers and guns. Heck, while The Lion King had audiences weeping over the emotional death of Mufasa, Kimba can instead be seen prominently parading around with his father’s carcass at times.

Even taking the other Kimba the White Lion series and films from the franchise into consideration, the scrutiny over comparisons between the two franchises is overall reductive to the point of vagueness that could apply to most any coincidence in media. Those arguing over the suspicious relatability of the two properties tend to stitch together carefully nitpicked, unrelated scenes from the plethora of Kimba material in a forced effort to make the two look as similar as possible to those unfamiliar with either. Sometimes these hodge-podge “similarity” compilations even pull visuals from Kimba media made after 1994 to retroactively call out The Lion King supposedly plagiarizing.

Now that the news has recently broken that Nintendo is going to relaunch the Virtual Boy, some games that were announced but never released have curiously resurfaced. Even games I had no idea existed have appeared, leading me to conclude that Nintendo and various third-party developers are keeping all their projects in storage and not discarding them, anticipating future releases like this.

Therefore, I wholeheartedly believe that the Jungle Taitei prototype is being held back, waiting for Miyamoto (or someone else) to finish it, but I don't know if this will be the generation in which it will be completed.