New Adventures of Kimba the White Lion (1989– ) User Reviews

Nice Artwork, But Missing the Spirit of the Original

[cairn6 · 6/10 · 8 June 2013]

I grew up on old "Kimba the White Lion" cartoons and with that said I had to take a peek at the "New Adventures". Now with any remake, things can go either way. In the case of this one...while the artwork is indeed very well done, something is truly missing...mainly the heart, spirit, and like-ability of the original series. That and the voice work seems hopelessly off compared to the original. In the 1966 series Billy Lou Watt worked wonders with her voice as she made Kimba come to life as a friendly, light-hearted, yet responsible and sensible young leader. The new series' Kimba is voiced by an adult who's voice seems too old, and the Lion himself too serious, angry, and yet oddly clumsy...too far a departure from what viewers have known and loved. For newer audiences, this could make such wonderful characters be seen as "run of the mill" or just not someone they could relate to. This could be due to the fact that the new version is more "true" to the original manga series from Japan...but for fans who knew and loved the Americanized version, this approach kind of misses. The "New Adventures" is great for anime fans or Kimba purists, but fans who loved the 1966 U.S. series could be disappointed.

Soulless Ideon-like pessimism mixed with the adventures of a lion cub: wait what?!

[TooKakkoiiforYou_321 · 3/10 · 6 January 2023]

Of course it was never going to work, of course it was completely pointless from the very beginning. What exactly the cosmic masterpiece Ideon and THE ADVENTURES OF A LION CUB have to do with each other to begin with? And it's also not in line with what Osamu Tezuka used us to (at least, us with experience with other IPs like Burakku Jakku, Tetsuwan Atom etc. Etc.), and I mean with that a general sense of positiveness behind his cartoon characters even in moments of tragedy, moments always used to vehicle some message and not because "hey we don't have any idea, let's ramp up senselessly the darkness and grittiness because we're japanese and we need to hide the fact that we don't know what to do!1!11!". Something that will become abundantly clear each boring filler episode more after boring filler episode more. A complete waste in all regards. If you want to watch a very well done remake of a classic Osamu Tezuka IP, watch the awesome 80's Tetsuwan Atom anime remake and forget this thing ever existed in the first place.