Kimba the White Lion

I finally got a chance to rent the U.S. Rhino DVD releases and just wanted to point out that while the visuals are the original 1960s anime series, what you get is the 1960s U.S. soundtrack intact - so there is no Tomita music because you don't get the Japanese audio. They replaced all his instrumental music (not just the title theme) On the other hand there are some other Kimba or Kimba-like releases that aren't even the original 60s animation. (I saw somthing cheap and crappy Sony put out in the U.S. that isn't Tezuka based but might fool people who don't know Tezuka's work)

On the upside, "Jungle Emperor Leo" a 1997 full length anime based on Tezuka's characters does have it's recent Tomita score intact on inexpensive U.S. DVD. Watching it I was quite amused that the music in an establishing scene near the beginning is original but seems to be influenced by "Grand Canyon Suite"

I'd like to get the Symphonic Suite in the video version, it hasn't hit Japanese DVD yet, am I correct?

I guess I could get some Japanese VHS episodes used for cheap.

 

That's not true. The 1960s US soundtrack DID include the original music from the Japanese version and Tomita is named in the end credits. There are isolated occasions where the American dubbing actors talked through a song rather than attempt to sing, but for the most part Tomita's music survived intact. Aside from the theme song, there was no new music applied to the US version of the show (in the 1960s).

(Incidentally, the very first episode was produced with some of Tomita's music as its theme song; this was meant to be removed from circulation, but some prints were still being broadcast in the 1970s.)

I specified "in the 1960s" above because there is a newer (1993) English-dubbed version of the show currently in syndication; this one has had all the music replaced with junk. But this is not what's on the Rhino DVDs.

"The New Adventures of Kimba" was produced by Tezuka's animation company in 1989, but it was not scored by Tomita. (The animation isn't worth much, either.)

Yes, the similarity is very striking. However, Tomita used the same theme and effect in his original (1965) score for the Kimba/Jungle Emperor TV show, so one would have to say that his Grand Canyon Suite was influenced by that.

It was released on DVD in 2001. CDJapan has it.
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=COBC-4104
Coded for Region 2, no English subtitles for the opening narration.
This is, however, quite different in character from his actual score for the TV series.

BTW, the soundtrack album for the Jungle Emperor Leo movie is also available from CDJapan.

The original TV series is also available from Japan on DVD. There is an unfortunate frequent distortion on the soundtrack, though. Still, considering that the Rhino DVDs were mastered from worn-out 16mm films, it is something of an improvement.

 

This is kind of why I brought it up. I'm confused. I recently managed to rent the first Rhino DVD (I guess Vol. 1 Disc 1) - Okay there's the Kimba song which I think anyone would know isn't Tomita. The rest of the show had 1960s music I didn't recognize as sounding like Tomita - I'm comparing to that single volume mono Toshiba CD of original recordings that came out in the mid 90s (not the withdrawn Bandai set) - What was on there was much more lushly orchestrated and emotional than what was on any of the episodes (which I didn't see any music credit on). For example many tracks on the soundtrack had some wordless choir and none on the Rhino DVD did.So I don't know. So maybe these episodes are an exception.

next topic - as for totally knock off stuff - I saw an animated Sony U.S. home video that was called "Jungle King" or something that came out in the wake of Disney's film though was made before it I assume for some foreign market - anyway it made me look twice when I was looking through the animated films.

As for "Grand Canyon", the original of course was from the early 1930s. In any case Tomita's own style is closest to early 20th Centural tonal composers - he cited Rimsky-Korsakov and Respighi as to influences.

I had a source for cheap used Japanese VHS tapes, but when I checked someone picked up all the Tezuka. I half remembered they had some a while back. In general I'm kind of a cheapskate since I guess Japanese episode releases often run almost 100 yen a minute on DVD. Sooner or later I'll get a membership at some rental place.

 

Not counting the themes (Tomita wrote different two-minute-long opening and closing theme songs for the Japanese edition of Jungle Emperor; the closing theme is most commonly heard in a one-minute version, and this was further edited to 40 seconds for the first [discarded] theme song of the American version), there are maybe one or two tracks on the Toshiba CD that can't be heard on the American Kimba episodes.

Disc 1 of the Rhino set contains the first 7 episodes of the series, which are more expositional in nature than later episodes, so there was less time for music sets. Later in the series there would be extended musical numbers. On the American soundtracks, any Japanese vocals would be omitted or suppressed, with one notable exception: episode 23 opened and closed with an owls' song that was so crucial to the atmosphere of the episode, and yet the dubbers were so unable to come up with a way of converting it to English, that they ran it with the Japanese vocals intact while the narrator excused it with the line "who can understand owls, anyway?"

But take episode one: the night scene in the middle of the ocean. (See this video file if you don't have the DVD handy: http://www.kimbawlion.com/LostVersion.rm)
To me, the music for this scene is unmistakably Tomita. The American version omitted the main vocal line from the Japanese soundtrack, but the background vocals are still there, singing the character's Japanese name (Leo). Here's an audio-only file of the same part: http://www.kimbawlion.com/Eliza'sSong.mp3
--the Japanese soundtrack is on the left, the American soundtrack is on the right. This shows the way many of the songs were handled; the dubbers did not attempt to sing all the songs, but the music was kept.

 

I still don't have that DVD with me.

Yes there's no question the music you posted is Tomita.

I was hearing a lot stuff on the Rhino DVDs that sounded more like needle-drop music. If I get back to it I'll listen close and see what I can find that's either obviously Tomita or very clearly not Tomita.

Update -- Oh I lucked out... I found a source for affordable legit used Japanese Kimba tapes (not online unless someone wants to fund a run for me to buy them myself) and picked up 2 of them. So I'll keep this list posted after I watch them