2010s
2010.
"La Leyenda de Kimba, el Leon blanco" was aired on spanish TV network Retelsat, Monday to Friday, from May 28 to June 17.
From April 22 (from July 12 for "Sesta Rete") "Kimba il leone bianco" anime was shown on 3 local TV stations (all airings ended in August):
- on Telestudio (Piemonte) everyday, starting at 6:45 AM and at 8:30 PM CET
- on Quinta Rete (Piemonte) everyday, starting at 8:00 AM and at 5:00 PM CET
- on Sesta Rete (Piemonte), everyday, starting at 4:00 PM and at 7:15 PM CET
From October 2 to January 15, 2011, "Kimba il leone bianco" anime was shown on D1 Television (Sicily), every Monday and Saturday at 5:35 PM CET.
On Thursday, October 14, the 1997 "Jungle Emperor Leo" movie was aired at 7:00 PM on Cartoon Network Japan channel.
"Kimba the white lion" TV series were shown in Indonesia on ANTV from November 2010 to January 2011, every day at 3:30 AM, 1 episode a day (from December 23 to January 2011 2 episodes a day were aired every day at 3:00 AM). The airing started approximately at November 5 and ended on January 1, 2011.
From December 23, 2010 "Una giungla di avventure per Kimba" was finally again aired in Italy on Boing TV, every day from Monday to Saturday at 19:15 CET.
2011.
Starting on May 4 to August 2 "Una giungla di avventure per Kimba" anime was again aired on TV in Italy, this time on Hiro (part of Mediaset Premium), everyday at 7:50 AM, 12:10 PM, 7:45 PM and 12:30 AM CET. Since August 1 the Hiro channel has continued only as an Internet TV channel on Premium Net TV.
From September 6 to December 5 the original 1965 "Jungle Emperor" series were broadcast on TV Kanagawa, 1 episode every day from Monday - Thursday at 8:00 AM.
On September 11 "Kimba - la leggenda del leone bianco" AKA the 1997 "Jungle Emperor Leo" movie was again aired in Italy on Italia 1 at 4:40 PM CET.
From Wednesday, October 19 to December 30 the original 1965 "Jungle Emperor" series were broadcast on KBS Kyoto, 1 episode every day from Monday - Friday at 7:30 AM.
2012.
On Sunday, January 8 "Jungle Emperor - Leo's Courage Changes the Future" has been broadcast again, this time on Fuji Television TWO, at 4:00 PM.
In honor of the 30th anniversary of the italian 45 RPM Kimba single a limited edition (only 300 copies) reissue of the sigle containing the italian Kimba opening theme has been released in Italy on January 30 by Tre Effe Music, label owned by the song's composer Riccardo Zara. It has been released in white vinyl (to distinguish it from the original, and because of Kimba's fur color), and on the B-side the music base of the song has been put instead of the instrumental version (as it was on the original 1982 single). It is also first time that the correct artist name has finally been written on the record, as the 1982 release showed the pseudonym "La Mamma di Jonathan" ("Jonathan's Mommy"). Catalog number is 3F 45 002.
On Sunday, May 5, the 1997 "Jungle Emperor Leo" movie was aired at 3:00 PM on NHK channel.
"Kimba il leone bianco" anime was aired on Telestudio Torino, every day at 6:00 PM and 8:30 PM CET. The airing ended on November 6.
Craig Andersen, the author of Kimba W. Lion.com/Kimba.US (and owner of the White Lion Restorations), passed away on Monday, October 22.
Starting on November 8, the 1997 "Jungle Emperor Leo" movie was shown in movie theatres in Korea (under the title "밀림의 왕자 레오2"), and it had a good start, since in only 3 days after its release (weekend November 9-11) it reached place #7 on the Korean Box Office ranking list. However, after the weekend November 16-18 it dropped to place #9, and after the weekend November 23-25 it reached place #16 and thus dropped out of the Top 10 of the Korean Box Office.
2013.
Kimba was again aired in the U.S.! However, these episodes were the Spanish-dubbed from the 1993 series, and they were aired in the San Francisco-San Jose area on KAXT TeLeRomantica (digital terrestrial television, subchannel 1.11), Saturdays at 8:00 AM and 8:30 AM, and Sundays at 11:00 AM and 11:30 AM (2 episodes a day). The airing started in January, and ended on Sunday, August 4.
From February 18 to April 2 the 1966 series were broadcasted on TV Kanagawa, 1 episode every day from Monday - Thursday at 8:00 AM.
RightStuf has re-released the 1965 Kimba The White Lion series. The DVD set titled Kimba The White Lion Complete DVD has been released on July 9. However, this box has just all 52 episodes of the series (just like the Ultra DVD box has) but with no extras. More info about it, as well as the ordering links, can be found on the DVD releases page.
On March 22, the portuguese version of the original "Jungle Emperor" manga has been released in Brazil by NewPop. More info can be found on the Manga page.
From April 27 to September 9 "Kimba il leone bianco" anime was again aired on D1 Television (Sicily, Italy), every Monday and Saturday at 5:35 PM CET. The airing was stopped because D1 Television was definitely shut down.
From June 20 to August 30 the original 1965 "Jungle Emperor" series were aired in Japan on Cartoon Network HD, 1 episode a day, Monday to Friday at 5:00 AM (with repeats at 2:00 AM on the next day).
On Sunday, July 21, the 1966 "Jungle Emperor Leo" movie was shown on TV in Japan on MBC 1 at 3:35 PM.
On August 19, the first English (although it is actually a bilingual) version of the original "Jungle Emperor" manga has finally been released! It has been released by Jitsugyo no Nihon Sha. This edition covers only the first half of the original manga, has 191 pages and is in B6 (pocket book) format. More on the Manga page.
Lacoste Tezuka style - Lacoste has teamed with Tezuka Productions and the designer Hiroaki Ohya to create the Tezuka Collection for their Lacoste L!ve line of products. For Fall/Winter 2013 (available November 2013) scenes from 3 mangas including "Jungle Emperor" (pictured right) were selected for the products. You can locate your nearest Lacoste L!ve store here and here.
Starting on November 13 the original 1965 "Jungle Emperor" series were again aired in Japan on Cartoon Network, 1 episode a day, Monday to Friday at 5:00 AM (with repeats at 11:00 PM). The airing ended on January 27, 2014.
From December 1 the episodes from the original 1965 "Jungle Emperor" series are available on Fuji TV On Demand, a pay-per-view service of the japanese TV station Fuji TV which originally aired these series in 1965. Only the first episode seems to be available for free, but everything is in Japanese only. The episodes are available on FOD until November 30, 2015.
On December 11 RightStuf had released (for a limited time) the "Tezuka Starter DVD Holiday Bundle" which consisted of 3 Mini DVD Sets (Astro Boy Mini Set 1, Kimba the White Lion Mini Set 1 and Princess Knight Part 1) for the price od 1. You can find more about it on their official page.
Kimba returend to the uniform of the japanese baseball team Seibu Lions - on December 19 on a press conference they announced that, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Seibu Railway, they will hold "Jungle Emperor Series supported by Tezuka Productions" in 2014, and the uniform featuring Leo (pictured left) that was designed by Tezuka Productions was worn at several official games in 2014.
2014.
Kimba goes J-POP - Leo Ieiri, a 19-year-old Japanese singer-songwriter whose stage name was inspired by "Jungle Emperor", has made in collaboration with Tezuka Productions a music video for the title track for her 2nd album titled "a boy". The video features the anime version of Ieiri (based on Kimba) as a young lion meeting the characters from "Jungle Emperor". The Tezuka Productions' chief producer Hiroyuki Yumoto explained that this project came about because the song "a boy" splendidly encapsulates the story themes of "Jungle Emperor". The video combines animation and live-action (the preview of the video can be accessed here), and the album "a boy", in both regular and limited edition (limited edition includes bonus DVD with the mentioned music video and some other extras) has been released by JVC Music on February 19.
The 1966 and the 1997 "Jungle Emperor Leo" movies were aired several times in March/April in Japan on the TV channel NECO in both SD and HD. The 1966 movie has been aired on March 8 at 5:30 PM, on March 12 at 9:00 PM, on March 18 at 8:10 AM, on March 29 at 1:00 PM and on April 1 at 2:20 AM. The 1997 movie has been aired on March 4 at 9:00 PM, on March 12 at 10:20 PM, on March 23 at 11:00 AM, and on April 1 at 3:40 AM.
The 1966 "Jungle Emperor Leo" movie has been shown on the 2014 Tokyo Anime Award Festival (March 20 - 23) as a part of a special screening to commemorate the 85th anniversary of Osamu Tezuka's birth, along with the screening of the 1996 "Black Jack" movie and the 1964 "Astro Boy" movie. The screening took place on Friday, March 21 at 11:00 PM on Screen number 9.
The 1997 "Jungle Emperor Leo" movie has been shown on the 2014 Anime Boston (March 21 - 23). The screening was on Friday, March 21 at 1:30 PM EST in Hynes Convention Center, Video 311.
The 1993 episodes in Spanish "Kimba, el León Blanco" were again aired in the U.S. on Tele-Romántica, on the following stations (check the Tele-Romántica page on RabbitEars.info for additional stations):
- KBEH-DT (Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, California) - channel 63, subchannels 3 and 7
- KYPK-LD / K13W-PD (Yakima, Washington) - channel 38, subchannel 7
- KMDF-LD (Midland and Penwell, Texas) - channel 22, subchannel 3
- KOHC-CD (Oklahoma City) - channel 45, subchannel 4
- WRJK-LP (Chicago) - channel 22, subchannel 4
- WNYN-LD (New York City) - channel 39, subchannel 1
- WBWP-LD (West Palm Beach, Florida) - channel 57, subchannel 2
- WCEA-LD (Plaistow, New Hampshire and Boston, MA) - channel 58, subchannel 4
They were aired Saturdays and Sundays at 9:00 AM PDT (KBEH,KYPK) / 11:00 AM CDT (KMDF,KOHC,WRJK) / 12:00 PM EDT (WNYN,WBWP,WCEA), 1 episode a day. The airing started on April 5 and ended on September 26.
On Monday, May 5, the 1997 "Jungle Emperor Leo" movie has been aired in Japan at 10:00 AM on the TOKYO MX channel.
Tadahiko Hirano, baritone singer of the opening theme of the 1965 Jungle Emperor and professor emeritus at the Tokyo University of the Arts, passed away on June 13 at the age of 76.
On July 12 the original 1965 "Jungle Emperor" series were again aired in Japan on Cartoon Network (SD & HD). 1 episode a day was aired until August 31, and 2 episodes a day were aired after September 6, and the airings were Saturdays and Sundays at 5:00 AM (with repeats at 12:00 PM). The airing ended on November 2.
For the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Seibu Railways during which the "Jungle Emperor" series was promoted, a triple cooperation between Jungle Emperor Leo, Japanese singer-songwriter Leo Ieiri and Seibu Lions has been arranged. This event took place from August 12 to 17 at the Seibu Dome. This was also the last time the players of Seibu Lions wore the special uniform that features the mascot Leo which was designed by Tezuka Productions and announced in 2013. Several things took place during this event, and a short 2-minute video has been published on the Seibu Lions YouTube channel about this (you can watch it here). Here is the short description of the vents:
starting on August 12 many valuable original illustrations of the Seibu Lions team mascot "Leo" (an example is shown right), as well as the "Jungle Emperor" anime and manga manuscripts were exhibited in the Seibu Dome- 20 minutes before the first match on August 12 on Seibu Dome's L vision the opening sequence of the 1965 "Jungle Emperor" series (duration: 30 seconds) was shown
- Leo Ieiri threw the ceremonial first pitch on the opening ceremony on August 12
- two episodes from the original series were shown on Seibu Dome's L vision after the
match - on August 12 it was the 1st episode from the 1965 "Jungle Emperor" series, and on August 14 it was the 1st episode from the 1966 "Leo" series - on August 16 and 17 a "picture coloring classroom" was held by Tezuka Productions at the banquet hall on 3rd floor of the Seibu Dome
- special limited edition items like the Jungle Emperor Leo Special Series tickets, commemorative pins, special replica uniforms and caps and many others are already on sale here and on their official shop
Also, as the result of collaboration between Kimba, Leo Ieiri and Seibu Lions on K-Shop were on sale some other special items (with Seibu and Leo) like the Leo "00" T-shirts, muffler towels and badges.
On November 30 in Japan a picture book based on based on the illustrations that Osamu Tezuka drew from the first episode “Go, White Lion" for the LP "Jungle Emperor - Symphonic Poem" has been released by Juritsusha. The music from that LP was later made into a movie in 1991 and it was released on DVD twice. More info on this picture book can be found on the Japanese releases page.
2015. - 50 years of Kimba on TV!
The 1997 Jungle Emperor movie was aired on TV in Japan on 2 stations: on January 1 at 4:00 PM on Sun TV, and on January 2 at 10:00 AM on Gunma TV (GTV).
The opening theme of the 1965 "Jungle Emperor" anime, performed by the late Tadahiko Hirano, was aired on japanese NHK Radio 1 on February 17 at 2:22 AM, as a part of the "NHK Radio Midnight Flight" programme titled "Romantic Concert - Work of the Sound Artist: Works by Isao Tomita".
The 1997 "Jungle Emperor Leo" movie has been shown on the 2015 Anime Boston (April 3 - 5). The screening was on Sunday, April 5 at 2:00 PM EST in Hynes Convention Center, Video 103.
50 years after its initial airing on Fuji TV the original 1965 "Jungle Emperor" series were again aired in Japan starting on April 2, and it was carried out on 2 TV stations: on Cartoon Network (SD & HD) were aired 2 episodes a day, Tuesday to Friday at 3:00 AM, while on Tochigi TV 1 episode a day was aired from Monday to Friday at 7:30 AM. The airing on Cartoon Network Japan ended on May 15, and the airing on Tochigi TV ended on June 12.
As part of the 50th anniversary of the first airing of the 1965 "Jungle Emperor" series another "lionish" collaboration project has been made with the New Japan Pro-Wrestling company (whose logo also resembles a lion). The project started on April 17 with the release of the green Raglan T-Shirt (pictured right) which is again available for order in the NJPW Shop. From May 22 the below pictured rubber keychain figures of Kimba dressed up as wrestlers Hiroshi Tanahashi, Togi Makabe, Shinsuke Nakamura and Kazuchika Okada were separately sold in the NJPW Shop, but since July 29 they are available as a set at a special price.
Leo Ieiri, the 20-year-old Japanese singer-songwriter whose stage name was inspired by "Jungle Emperor", has made another collaboration with Tezuka Productions in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first airing of the 1965 "Jungle Emperor" series, and for the "4th one-man Tour" based on her latest album simply titled "20" two collaboration badges (pictured left) and a collaboration can were sold at every concert venue. The tour went on from May 4 to July 21.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Kimba the White Lion on TV Uniqlo has released 12 T-shirts as a part of the special "Message from Tezuka" collection for the "Ultra T" (UT) product line on May 13. The T-shirts display Kimba as well as other Tezuka characters, including Astro Boy and Black Jack. Currently (October 19) the shirts are available only in the recently opened Australian webshop, as well as in Uniqlo stores in Philippines. The shirts are unfortunately out of stock for all other countries (in the Japan, UK & Europe, U.S. and Singapore webshops, and in Uniqlo stores in China, Taiwan, Korea, Germany, France, Russia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia). The eBay stores Tokyo Lover since 2012 and Cartoon-Mall also have only few of these T-shirts left (if you look for "Message from Tezuka" or simply "Tezuka").
From June 15 to July 23 the 1966 "Jungle Emperor" series were again aired in Japan on Tochigi TV, 1 episode a day, Monday to Friday at 7:30 AM.
From July 1 to August 13 the original 1965 "Jungle Emperor" series were re-aired on Cartoon Network Japan, 2 episodes a day, Monday to Thursday at 2:00 AM.
New Era from Japan has released of 8 MLB-type limited edition baseball caps to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Kimba the White Lion on TV. Their prices are 5832 JPY (around $48.65) and 5292 JPY (around $44.15). You can check them out on the New Era webshop.
The japanese National Institute of Mint has issued an official commemorative proof coin set for the 50th anniversary of Jungle Emperor/Kimba on TV! In the set are six types of proof coins of 1 yen to 500 yen of the 2015 inscription (with a gloss on the surface using a special technology & a pattern that is embossed on the coin) and a silver medal (silver 925/1000, copper 75/1000). On the front of the silver medal is Leo/Kimba, while Laiya/Kitty is painted on the back. It comes in a special leather case, and it has been housed in the cover case. Around 15000 sets will be sold at a price of approx. $110, and orders were taken until September 29.