Leo/Kimba essay

[cmoon]

OK, this is weird:

I'm working (finally) on a leo/kimba essay thing (its mostly reviews now), but I would like to include a discussion of the story/stories as a whole taking all the series into account (since I'm in the rare position to actually do that--short of 'new adventures' which I think have been more or less universally written off.)

What I'm wondering is if any of you have any questions about those series (Kimba, onward leo!, jungle emperor leo, and obviously the manga), that I should be covering in this essay but am overlooking.

Its rather meant just to be a big overview of the those works, but I could be too close to it, not asking (or rather, answering) the obvious questions.

[Kevin]

Was Leo/Kimba based on a tale from africa, or was it completely original - meaning that Disney did steal the idea outright and violated original Japanese copyrights with the Lion King?

[strobe_z]

I think we'd be in a better position to answer after we've seen a rough draft. I don't know a single Leo scholar better than you, so I'm not worried...

[cmoon]

Oh, I didn't even think about mentioning the lion king thing. Maybe I should say something about that.

If you're looking for a direct answer, check out this link:

http://www.kimbawlion.com/rant2.htm

It has also been discussed here (though its a bit old):

http://forums.tezukainenglish.com/viewt ... =lion+king

[cmoon]

[cmoon]

So far the 'essay' is broken into an intro (which is pretty insubstantial), a synopsis (pretty freakin' huge, probably needs editing), a review of Jungle Emperor, Kimba, Onward Leo! and Jungle Emperor Leo, and a discussion section (completely unfinished.)

For the most part I want to use the essay as a way of both discussing a pretty diffuse set of works in a single setting, but also making justification for the reprint of Tezuka.

The issues I most need to include in the discussion are the themes which the Leo stories deal with; of which I am considering:

What nature still has left to offer humanity (with reference to Loren Eiseley)
The spiritual advancement of the community (with reference to Wassily Kandinsky)
Earliest emergence of Tezuka's mature themes (with reference to Tezuka himself--specifically the much quoted 'long form' of Tezuka's message'.)

I probably should address the Lion King/Jungle Emperor thing, but honestly, if you watch Jungle Emperor Leo this is SO put to rest. The opening minutes of the film say 'yup, we know what you did, and here's a zing right back at you!' Of course, I content the original intention was no doubt homage, and its the people upstairs who screwed it up!

[Jeffbert]

[cmoon]

[cmoon]

Well I've been sitting on this thing too long. Its about 16 pages now; have been doing some editing and adding new sections.

One section I had not intended to add was the issue of racism/stereotypical images. After the recent interview with Ioannis Mentzas it has now become more apparent to me that it may be this issue alone that keeps Leo from ever getting published in the US (and now it seems it has been pulled out of wide circulation in Japan.

This is pretty difficult for me since this is Tezuka here--the same Tezuka who used Astroboy as a sledgehammer against racism, classism and other forms of oppression.

Anyway, I had to do a quick search since sometimes 1+1 does in fact = 2; and yes, here's one place Tezuka probably looked to for inspiration for his natives:



Heh...

[Jeffbert]

I found the girl's name. What cartoon had that image?

Despite the obvious insulting nature of that caricature, I do not belive that there was anything necessarily racist about it, becuase they did some similar things to political and religious opponents. I have a copy of Dr. Suess goes to war, & it is really bad in this area.

[cmoon]

[Kevin]

[cmoon]

[Kevin]

[cmoon]