Oh, I'm not trying to change your opinion. I'm just stating that the reason why animation is more welcome to any age over there than over here is it's apart of their culture. Animation isn't really apart of American culture (then again, do we have culture?)

Ironically, I agree that Japanese movie quality is usually more thought out, though Lion King will still be my favorite.

And yet, when I googled the issue, it seems that there was no issue with copyright and that, though the animation is similar, the plot is still completely different.

I found comments like these:

"Plagiarism is one thing, violation of copyright and trademarks are somewhat different issues.

If Disney animators turned to Tezuka Osamu’s brilliant body of work for inspiration, HE WOULD HAVE BEEN DELIGHTED. Afterall, early classic era Disney was a constant source of inspiration to Tezuka.

A Disney animators also turned to people like Miyazaki Hayao, too. And he seemed to have been inspired by the creators of ‘Ginga Tetsudo’, a really visually wonderful animated feature from the early 80s.

But saying the Lion King violates a copyright would be like saying any mouse character is a violation of the Mickey Mouse copyright."

"The Lion King and Kimba have ENTIRELY different storylines. Just because some of the animation is similar, does NOT mean that the whole thing was indeed stolen. In fact, The Lion King was ACTUALLY based on William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Just watch any version of Hamlet, and you’ll understand. Hamlet (Simba) is heir to the throne of Denmark (The Pride Lands), until his evil uncle Claudius (Scar) steals away Hamlet’s throne, kills his father (Mufasa), and marries his mother (Sarabi). Hamlet falls in love with Ophelia (Nala), and with the help of Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo (Zazu, Timon, and Pumbaa), they defeat Claudius (again, Scar), however, at the end they all die. Of course, in Disney’s version, the only one who dies is Scar. I think that Walt Disney was a complete genius to make such a classic so modern and understandable. Therefore, The Lion King is definitely NOT based on Kimba. Did I solve everyone’s problem?"

"If Disney ripped off Tezuka, then Tezuka's manga rip off Disney animations all of the time. They just used each other for inspiration."

Those are just a few, though.

ARTS BB
TOPIC: ROY DISNEY
TIME: 07/19 8:23 PM

TO: JILL SAUDER (JKFG91B)
FROM: ROY DISNEY (STAR99B)
SUBJECT: "ROY ON MOMS"

Jill, you asked whether we had any "nice motherly figures"
in Disney's animated future.
Wait until you see next summer's "The Lion King," and
Kimba's mother. She's quite lovely.

Roy Disney
------------------

Kind of hard to deny they had never heard of Kimba or Tezuka before the movie's release when Roy Disney's mentions Kimba by name a year before the release. And Tezuka and Walt Disney had met and talked about collaborating in 1964.

Those that say Simba was a ripoff of Kimba are not talking storylines, but style and characters. The link I posted shows some pretty clear examples and explains why they never got sued.

I don't think anyone really denies that they'd heard of Kimba. I think what my sources are arguing is that "rip off" has a negative connotation, when really all Disney did was use inspiration. Apparently, there was a mutual relationship of inspiration between Tezuka and Disney. I wonder why people don't say that Tezuka ripped off Disney's animations. Maybe it's because The Lion King was a much larger success than Kimba: The White Lion.

"we never heard of Tezuka nor Kimba until after The Lion King was released"

My point is just that it isn't all that crazy to think that Disney may have borrowed from Kimba, that's all.

Sorry, was that from the original link you'd given? I didn't see it.

At this point, though, we're pretty much saying the same thing. Disney was inspired by Tezuka when he created The Lion King, in the same way that apparently Tezuka was inspired by Disney's Bambi when he created one of his own manga. There was no "ripping off" or "stealing," though. Just mutual respect and idolization by two amazing artists.

Yes, that was in the original link.

I think if Disney borrowed from Tezuka, they should acknowledge it, that's all.

Yeah, of course. I think that line is kind of strange. I was just looking through stuff on google, and it looks like Disney was pretty open about the fact that he was a fan of Tezuka's and vice versa. I don't know, maybe we as outside viewers and just creating a controversy that doesn't exist.

Every country has a culture, silly, it's just you have more trouble seeing it because it is what you consider just to be the normal stuff.

And yes, American cinema is a huge part of American culture; they even give gold statues to those who do well in it in front of an audience of millions... it is also their most popular exportable product.

I think this varies from director to director and on the story writers, and is not tied to nationality... I mean, I've seen some shokers Japanese films.

What a fruit cake...

They make a great essay, then they end it with the most irrelevant thing. Does it really matters Lion King has no humans in it? It focuses on other decent values, such as courage and responsibility.

Moron.

It is interesting, however.