Produced in commemoration of Fuji TV's 50th anniversary, it was directed by Gorō Taniguchi, written by novelist and drama writer Osamu Suzuki, and featuring character designs from illustrator Yoshitaka Amano.

In Africa during the mid-20th century, as mankind encroaches, the white lion Panja (パンジャ, Caesar in the English dub) gives the jungle's wild animals a safe haven.

[citation needed] In Europe, it was broadcast in Bosnia and Herzegovina on RTVUSK; in Croatia on ATV Split/TV Jadran, Nezavisna televizija (NeT), TV Nova Pula and Gradska TV Zadar; in Germany 1977 in ZDF; in France on ORTF (1972) and on TF1; in Italy first in syndication from 1977 and lately on Italia 1 (in 1999 and 2003 with the title Una giungla di avventure per Kimba [literally "a jungle of adventures for Kimba"]) and Boing (2010) and in Spain on TV3.

It was first commissioned for U.S. development by NBC Enterprises (the original version, now part of CBS Television Distribution) and adapted by Fred Ladd, for syndicated broadcast, with Kimba voiced by Billie Lou Watt.

[10] In 2005 the original 1965 dub of Kimba the White Lion was released as an 11-disc DVD set by Madman Anime of Australia and Right Stuf International of the U.S.

The series was re-dubbed into English in 1993, featuring the voice of Yvonne Murray as Kimba and having a new opening, with an all new soundtrack composed by Paul J. Zaza.

[citation needed] The theatrical version of Jungle Emperor, directed by Eiichi Yamamoto, was released in Japan on July 31, 1966.

Several heavily edited episodes of the series were dubbed into English and released directly to video in 1998 under the name: The New Adventures of Kimba the White Lion, by Pioneer Family Entertainment.

[citation needed] A television film, Jungle Taitei – Yūki ga Mirai wo Kaeru (ジャングル大帝　勇気が未来をかえる), aired in Japan on September 5, 2009,[18] with a completely new story, different from both the previous TV shows and the original manga.

In this movie, Panja and his mate, Eliza, are still alive; Coco is an unspecified female bird; and Sylvester, the black panther, serves as an antagonist until he changes his ways when a young boy mends his leg.

Later that year in an interview at E3 1998, Shigeru Miyamoto mentioned that the project is in a bit of trouble and may take longer to complete than originally expected, due to inexperience.

[citation needed] Jungle Emperor characters have cameos in the GBA game Astro Boy: Omega Factor, as well as a chapter from the Black Jack manga and Naoki Urasawa's Pluto.

The US-English theme song known as "Leo the Lion" was written by Mark Boccaccio and Susan Brunet of Miami, Florida's SONIC-Sound International Corporation in 1984.

After the 1994 release of Disney's animated feature film The Lion King, it was suggested by some that there were similarities in characters, plotlines, sequences and events in the story resembling those of Kimba.

[24] Similarities in visual sequences have also been noted, most comprehensively by animation historian Fred Patten who published an essay on the subject.

[23] Patten would later go on to say that allegations that The Lion King was "simply [an] imitation" of Kimba were "not true",[25] and that many fans who had not seen the show since childhood—or at all—had "exaggerated the similarities".

[26] Matthew Broderick, the voice actor for the adult Simba, recalled in an interview back in 1994 that he once believed that he was cast in a project about Kimba, bringing up memories of watching the series as a child.

[28] 488 Japanese cartoonists and animators signed the petition, which drew a protest in Japan, where Tezuka and Kimba are cultural icons.

Yoshihiro Shimizu, the company's director, stated that many of their employees saw resemblances between the two properties, but "any similarities in their plots are based in the facts of nature and therefore are two different works".

[33] In his book, Makoto Tezuka states that the controversy started in America and people inflated the issue because of their opposition to Disney's business practices.

[35][36] The Seibu conglomerate-owned team's mascot became highly visible throughout Japan on baseball caps, shirts, etc., as well as being heavily used in advertisement especially in the Tokyo area.

[37][38] Frederick L. Schodt makes the argument that by the 1980s, Leo the lion could hardly escape the notice of foreign visitors to the city.