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Comic Mint, your best source for rare, kooky, and classic animation art, is pleased to offer this iconic publicity cel of Kimba the White Lion, standing with his friends and allies along the shoreline of the African jungle.

Kimba has been hand-inked and hand-painted on the reverse side, in the same manner as the original cartoons were created. Kimba measures 7” inches in height by 7” inches in width and the cel is registered against a high quality giclee background.

The show was produced in Japan, where it was known as "Jungle Emperor". The story and characters were created by Osamu Tezuka, adapted from his own manga which was first published in 1950. Jungle Emperor / Kimba the White Lion was made in 1965 as a joint production between Tezuka's Mushi Productions and NBC Enterprises.

Kimba the White Lion is often described as leading the way for modern anime. It was the first anime made in color, beating Speed Racer to the screen by a year. In Kimba, Tezuka established the expressive character of anime, with a much wider spectrum of both paints and animation techniques than in his black-and-white series that had gone before, vividly depicting characters' emotions through color and a wide array of visual poses, animation tricks, and exaggerations. And in spite of the show's chronological age it is actually (still) far ahead of most modern anime in its use of the medium. Tezuka exploited the possibilities of animation with superb imagination and storytelling skills. The stylized characters can express their emotions, motives, and intentions in an instant. Color itself was used in wonderful and powerful ways.