Thursday, October 18, 2001

“I also think that the most vulnerable time for any human, is when they go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. To be shot then would be awful.”

~Tink~ on OpenDiary, October 18, 2001

Went to a video store to see if they had Boogiepop Phantom yet. They didn’t, so I skimmed their anime VHS selection for those odd titles that’ll probably never be released on DVD. I found one: Kimba the White Lion, the children’s show by Osamu “Father of Anime” Tezuka. I grabbed the first tape for a measly USD $15 (a bargain compared to most anime DVDs, which cost $30 for the same number of episodes), and ended up watching the first two episodes before going to bed.

Depending on who you listen to, Disney’s the The Lion King was either inspired by, or a direct rip-off of, Kimba. The truth, from my perspective, lies more with the latter interpretation. For example, Kimba has two primary friends: a spiritualist baboon, and a smart-talking parrot. Sound familiar? I understand that a warthog enters the scene later on in the series….

The show itself is quite odd. It’s indistinguishable from the early Fabulous Fleischer Folio cartoons, and uses absolutely minimal animation — I’d guess no more than a few hundred cels per episode. Despite those drawbacks, it tells a massive, complicated plot for a childrens’ TV show, and is often quite dark. Death and tragedy are part of life in this jungle story. I can’t say that I like the show, but it has enough impressive elements that I at least respect it.

Leave a Reply

I work for Amazon. The content on this site is my own and doesn’t necessarily represent Amazon’s position.