Choose to Be Strong

Also available in video format here:

Original comic artist: voko_y <- Click here to get to their twitter!

Lion King (1994) Lion King (2019) Cats (2019)

Kimba the White Lion (1965), The Lion King (1994), The Lion King (2019), Cats (2019):

Shakespeare (1564), Kimba the White Lion (1965), The Lion King (1994), The Lion King (2019), Cats (2019):

Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1160 – c. 1220) , Shakespeare (1564), Kimba the White Lion (1965), The Lion King (1994), The Lion King (2019), Cats (2019):

HOWEVER if you want a tl;dr

Simba is named Simba because it’s Swahili for lion. Kimba is named Kimba because they thought “Simba” would be too hard to trademark and would be too generic. 

Kimba the White Lion is a manga that was adapted into multiple seasons/versions + several movies. As both TLK and Kimba take place in Africa, there’s a limited “palette” of animals that either artist could pull from when making a movie about African animals. What this means is that sometimes the same animal is used in an episode of Kimba, but that doesn’t mean much due to the amount of Kimba there is + the “palette.” 

For example, in both Kimba and TLK there’s a warthog. In TLK, it’s Pumba, in Kimba it’s a character that only shows up in a couple of episodes, is a child (?), is a noted coward, and has a masochism kink. No joke; an actual clip of the show has him see a monkey mom spanking her monkey baby, and asking to also be spanked. 

HOWEVER if you just saw a picture of the two warthogs side by side with the note “and both series have a warthog!!” without context to the amount of weight given to the characters in each story, you could see why they’d be thought of as “similar”.

A lot of the comparisons are just like… Tropes. Like “Simba has a love interest who is also a lion. This is a rip off of Kimba” level of tropes. (Spoilers: characters having love interests is actually super common.)  

Kimba on cliffs/fighting on cliffs/pride rock looking things is super common, and the video even has a multicut of several times this happens. 

Kimba just carries around the corps of his dead dad, and sometimes wears him. This is not something that occurs in TLK. 

Kimba contains humans, TLK does not. 

Kimba…. contains very racist depictions of humans. It’s really really bad. 

Kimba also has a really blatant pro-colonization stance? Kimba really wants to make the animals “civilized” (which includes everyone being vegetarian, I guess.) 

“Africa is changing. The continent is coming of age. The people must say goodbye to devil’s masks and voodoo drums. That was all part of the past on the dark continent.“ <- Actual Kimba quote      

Also a Kimba quote:

“Kimba, your fur is white because you come from a long line of great leaders.”

“I hope I can be like my ancestors as well as look like them.” 

To be clear, I’m not saying TLK is perfect - see, the number of white voice actors for example, but like… It’s definitely a #yikes, and something to keep in mind when you see comparisons. 

The alive “father” figure that you see in some of the clips is not the supposed Mufasa parallel, but rather from a sequel series where Kimba is grown up; more analogous to Simba in the sequel. 

He is also an abusive father.  

A lot of the more blatant comparisons between the two, when it comes to side-by-side comparisons, actual come from the movie Jungle Emperor Leo which came out in 1997, three years after TLK. 

At the end, the creator of the video “compares” Kimba The White Lion to a 1940s comic called Simba: King of Beasts that “proves” using out of context imagery that Kimba is a rip off of KoB  

Obviously, the actual video goes into a lot more detail; again, it’s 2.5 hours long, but if you’re not up for watching it, here’s a tl;dr?

In The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, Gorons are allowed to enter Gerudo Town, even though only women are supposed to be there.

A character named Traysi actually researches this mystery, but doesn’t seem to figure out the answer, leaving fans to speculate more on their own.

But did you know? This mystery actually was solved in the original Japanese version of the game!

-

After you’ve taken care of the Divine Beast in the desert, you can find Traysi (JPN: Mitsuba) in town, writing notes as she watches two Gorons.

In the English version, she just says this:

“Male Gorons seem to have no trouble getting into Gerudo Town…”

But in the Japanese version, she says this:

“ゴロン族は ゲルド人にとっては 女子扱いっと…”

“Apparently Gorons are treated like women by the Gerudo people…”

So, the Japanese version basically says that Gorons are considered women by Gerudo standards, but the English version has rewritten this detail.

Notably, the English version also has Traisy emphasize that these Gorons are “male”, which is actually not directly stated in Japanese here.

Since characters do wonder why Gorons are allowed in the town we can gather that most people would consider them male, but they don’t say it outright.

In fact, there are some more details when we look at the two Gorons Traisy is watching here, Strade (JPN: Stradon) and Lyndae (JPN: Gadorin).

-

When you talk to Strade at this point in the game, he has this to say in Japanese:

“オデ… 友達できたゴロ”

“I… made a friend, goro.”

“でも… これって”

“But… Is this-”

“男友達ゴロ？ 女友達ゴロ？”

“A boy friend, goro? Or a girl friend, goro?”

Given this context, it also feels relevant that Lyndae has a traditionally feminine-sounding name in either language version.

In the Japanese version he also uses the first person pronoun 僕/Boku, which is considered masculine, but has come to occasionally be used by women and girls as well.

I do want to point out that Lyndae can also be found earlier in the game, wondering why he was let in:

“僕… なんで入れちゃったゴロン？”

“I wonder… Why’d they let me in here, goron?”

-

All in all, the Japanese version seems to play with the potential androgynous vibe of the Gorons, but it also shows that the Gorons aren’t really used to be treated as female the way the Gerudo do.

To put in a bit of my own thoughts here, I think this can be a neat way of showing that while Hylians (and the presumed audience) would consider Gorons male by default, this isn’t actually something that is universally true, and other cultures like the Gerudo can have a different understanding of gender.

In turn, to me it seems that the Gorons are used to being treated as male by Hylians, but they also clearly don’t seem opposed to the idea of being considered something else, even if it’s a slight surprise for them.

In any case, I think it’s a bit of a shame that the English version omitted this tidbit in the localization.

But that’s just me, I’d love to hear what other people think of this!

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity seems to contain a small reference to this small bit of lore.

In that game, Daruk (among others) is actually one of the selectable warriors for the “Miss Vai Battle Pageant” mission.

This indicates that he is considered a vai, which would go along with what we learn about Gorons and Gerudo in the Japanese version of Breath of the Wild.

In The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, Gorons are allowed to enter Gerudo Town, even though only women are supposed to be there.

A character named Traysi actually researches this mystery, but doesn’t seem to figure out the answer, leaving fans to speculate more on their own.

But did you know? This mystery actually was solved in the original Japanese version of the game!

-

After you’ve taken care of the Divine Beast in the desert, you can find Traysi (JPN: Mitsuba) in town, writing notes as she watches two Gorons.

In the English version, she just says this:

“Male Gorons seem to have no trouble getting into Gerudo Town…”

But in the Japanese version, she says this:

“ゴロン族は ゲルド人にとっては 女子扱いっと…”

“Apparently Gorons are treated like women by the Gerudo people…”

So, the Japanese version basically says that Gorons are considered women by Gerudo standards, but the English version has rewritten this detail.

Notably, the English version also has Traisy emphasize that these Gorons are “male”, which is actually not directly stated in Japanese here.

Since characters do wonder why Gorons are allowed in the town we can gather that most people would consider them male, but they don’t say it outright.

In fact, there are some more details when we look at the two Gorons Traisy is watching here, Strade (JPN: Stradon) and Lyndae (JPN: Gatorin).

-

When you talk to Strade at this point in the game, he has this to say in Japanese:

“オデ… 友達できたゴロ”

“I… made a friend, goro.”

“でも… これって”

“But… Is this-”

“男友達ゴロ？ 女友達ゴロ？”

“A boy friend, goro? Or a girl friend, goro?”

Given this context, it also feels relevant that Lyndae has a traditionally feminine-sounding name in either language version.

In the Japanese version he also uses the first person pronoun 僕/Boku, which is considered masculine, but has come to occasionally be used by women and girls as well.

I do want to point out that Lyndae can also be found earlier in the game, wondering why he was let in:

“僕… なんで入れちゃったゴロン？”

“I wonder… Why’d they let me in here, goron?”

-

All in all, the Japanese version seems to play with the potential androgynous vibe of the Gorons, but it also shows that the Gorons aren’t really used to be treated as female the way the Gerudo do.

To put in a bit of my own thoughts here, I think this can be a neat way of showing that while Hylians (and the presumed audience) would consider Gorons male by default, this isn’t actually something that is universally true, and other cultures like the Gerudo can have a different understanding of gender.

In turn, to me it seems that the Gorons are used to being treated as male by Hylians, but they also clearly don’t seem opposed to the idea of being considered something else, even if it’s a slight surprise for them.

In any case, I think it’s a bit of a shame that the English version omitted this tidbit in the localization.

But that’s just me, I’d love to hear what other people think of this!

Q•ゴロン族にも女性はいるのですか?

A•いるはずですが、見分けるのは難し いです。 なにしろ男も女も自分のこ とは「オラ」って言いますし・・・ (澤・ スクリプトディレクター)。

Q: Are there female Gorons?

A: There are, but it is difficult to tell them apart. Both males and females refer to themselves with masculine pronouns… (Sawa, Script Director).

pointy! (yes.)

“Large hair monster intrudes loving family dinner.”

“Afro Princess wins too much at kids capsule dispenser game, her friend is traumatized by the tidal wave of capsules.”

“Triangle head confused by green stop sign, she does not whether to go or stop, while amazon lady gets frustrated and just wants to go.”

“Afro Princess does not like the metal music from Jim Jam the Van Man, so she escapes. Jade Harley and generic boy watch on in horror as she escapes to her homeland.”

“Afro Princess learns the hard way that arcades do not have touchscreen.”

“Kitten woman has found a way to cheat at skeeball.”

“Afro Princess shows off her magnificent oven mitts.”

“Anime cosplay girl and dude who has had hair eaten go to buy tickets for anime convention.”

“Deviant art”