Certain elements of the film were thought to bear a resemblance to Osamu Tezuka's 1960s Japanese anime television series, "Jungle Emperor" (known as "Kimba the White Lion" in the United States), with some similarities between a number of characters and various individual scenes. The 1994 release of "The Lion King" drew a protest in Japan, where "Kimba" and its creator Osamu Tezuka are cultural icons. 488 Japanese cartoonists and animators, led by manga author Machiko Satonaka, signed a petition accusing Disney of plagiarism and demanding that they give due credit to Tezuka. Matthew Broderick believed initially that he was, in fact, working on an American version of "Kimba" since he was familiar with the Japanese original. "The Lion King" director Roger Allers claimed complete unfamiliarity with the show until the movie was almost completed, and did not remember it being ever mentioned during development. Madhavi Sunder has suggested that Allers might have seen the 1989 remake of "Kimba" on prime time television while living in Tokyo. However, while Allers did indeed move to Tokyo in 1983 in order to work on "" (1989), he moved back to the United States in 1985, four years before the 1989 remake of "Kimba" began airing. Co-director Rob Minkoff also stated that he was unfamiliar with it. Minkoff also observed that whenever a story is based in Africa, it is "not unusual to have characters like a baboon, a bird or hyenas."