Running time (not counting theme songs):
One of the longer episodes in Japan, you can see that the 1966 American version cut out a little over a minute for the translation. Nearly all of this cut was from introductory material at the very beginning of the episode, and actually that material is superfluous to the story. Where the American version starts out with the line, "Today, Africa is a continent of new nations...", the Japanese episode had 1:06 devoted to the emergence of modern culture in Africa. (The other several seconds missing from the American version were scene transitions that became superfluous when a scene was moved to its chronological place in the story. More on this later.)
The 1993 Canadian version was chopped to shreds to get it down to its running time, more than 3 minutes shorter than the original.
| 1966 American dub | 1993 Canadian dub | Original Japanese |
| The first 1:04 seen here is not present in the American dub. This is a brief history of Africa and its modernization. No characters appear in this portion, and it has no impact on any story. | ||
| A brief image of a UN flag ends the survey of Africa. This is followed by a zoom in to the map of Africa, which is present in the American version but not the Canadian. | ||
| 1:14 to 1:25 | (11 sec) missing scenes of animals running from hunters | |
| 1:41 to 2:04 | (23 sec) missing scenes of animals captured | |
| Death of Ceasar scene moved to its chronological place in the episode. This results in the loss of transitions to and from the "flashback". | The Canadian version follows the original Japanese sequence of scenes. | |
| 15:13 to 15:23 | (10 sec) missing scenes showing calm sea after storm | |
| 17:24 to 17:40 | (16 sec) missing scenes of shark attack | |
| 18:06 to 18:14 | (8 sec) missing scene of calm after shark swims away | |
| 19:57 to 20:45 | (48 sec) missing scenes of Kimba isolated in the ocean and the beginning of Kimba's mother's appearance in the sky | |
| 21:02 to 22:07 | (1 min 5 sec) missing scenes of Kimba swimming determinedly through the water--jump cut from Kimba's mother to butterflies is meant to suggest she turned into the butterflies? |
The Canadians' butchering of the scenes with Kimba's mother in the sky is a real shame, because it does a lot of damage to the atmosphere and emotions of the episode. However, the Canadian script makes more sense of Caesar's portion of the story than the Americans did, explaining that Caesar stole farm animals for the jungle animals to eat.
Sorry if I confused anyone by using the American names throughout this page.
Both the original Japanese episode and the 1966 American version are available on the Kimba Ultra Edition DVD set.