Disney’s Tarzan reboot: rules to follow

The ERB Inc Tarzan canon doesn’t even receive a ton of live action adaptations anymore, whether official or not. Even a lot of Tarzan’s more successful Expies are technically making fans crave for more (but not way too much) by exploring their own niches, and that’s okay for them, since the ERB Inc Tarzan canon is way too big to compete with them nowadays. The many trademark shenanigans that Tarzan and his wife Jane Porter carry along are both responsible and culpable as well.

A heroic bloodshed take on many Tarzan variants (but mostly on the Disney franchise instalments, which currently remain much better known than even the Weissmuller films of decades ago) will have to be made for nerds of many ages and stripes in the future. It has a large cast of main heroes, which is itself a clunky feat. While it’s okay not to defend really warped views on the mythic space as commonly imagined by fellow fans regardless of age, diversity is still a steady and much needed goal. 

The history of Akim

From the source: http://www.lazonamorta.it/lazonamorta2/?p=10835

“Akim” is a very particular comic book character: he is certainly the most famous Italian tarzanide (characters inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Tarzan") and he crossed over with the fantasy spectrum much more willingly and often in his stories, in all its forms and meanings, from fantasy to science fiction, from weird to horror to mystery, than his "literary progenitor" had in film. "Akim" was also one of the most enduring and long-lived series of the comics scene in our country of Italy: in all its "career" it had the beauty of four editorial lives for a total of around 2300 issues.

Its first issues were the so-called "strips" and were published in Italy from 1950 to 1967 by the M. Tomasina Typography on a weekly basis on texts by Roberto Renzi and drawings by Augusto Pedrazza for a total of 894 issues. The publication was divided into two periods, the first series includes 99 issues from 10 February 1950 to 28 December 1951, while the second series had 795 issues from 3 January 1952 to 31 March 1967. Furthermore, from 1954 to 1968 the strips were reprinted by the M. Tomasina in “Akim Gigante”, a publication consisting of five series of books including then-unpublished stories for another total of 508 stapled books.

And these were the first two lives of "Akim".

Eight years later, "Akim" returned to newsstands with a comic series in a Bonellian version: released between 1976 and 1983, this third life of the character took up the homonymous version of 1950 and was published by the Altamira publishing houses (the current Sergio Bonelli Editore) from 1976 to 1980 and Quadrifoglio from 1980 to 1983, for a total of 84 monthly issues plus a special register. The texts were once again Roberto Renzi and the drawings were always made by Augusto Pedrazza, who was assisted by Pini Segna.

The fourth and last life of "Akim" is recent history, given that for some years If Edizioni has been proceeding with the complete reprint of the Bonellian version in double albums with new unpublished covers by Corrado Mastantuono, which has so far reached just under a dozen issues.

Up to here the editorial history of "Akim", but now let's see who exactly this character is.

Inspired partly by Salgari's novels, partly by Kipling's “Kim” and “The Jungle Books” as well as being partly by Burroughs' "Tarzan", Akim has aristocratic origins and in reality his name is Jim (like the orphan boy he will later adopt): son of an English consul in Calcutta, which is now Kolkata, Count Fredrick Rank, he was shipwrecked as a toddler child off the coast of Africa and was saved by reaching the mainland with his mother. However, the woman is immediately torn to pieces by a hungry panther, while the child is saved and raised by a village of monkeys and great apes, headed by the gorilla Arab (later renamed Kar due to many factors). The child grows up and learns to talk to all the animals of the jungle, being accepted and respected by all species and soon becoming their king.

In the newly written stories produced for France (a total of 756 numbers added to those of the Italian edition, bringing the tally to over 2000 published stories, or in short, 2256 stories, the most official Italian and French ones of any non-Anglophone Tarzanide character on record other than Zembla), the authors begin the saga with some variations: here we find an airplane in trouble falling into the jungle, igniting a crash; a young child named Jim is saved by the gorilla Kar, son of Udug, who adopts him and gives him a new name, Akim.

If at first glance it seems the same script as "Tarzan", in reality "Akim" differs from his Burroughsian ancestor, both for the unprecedented anthropomorphism of the various animal species that he meets in the stories and for a strong ecological sensitivity of the series, with frequent references to a more balanced relationship between man and Nature.

The appearances of members of Akim's clan are numerous and vary from episode to episode: the core is however more or less constant, with the gorilla Kar and the mischievous and lazy monkeys Zig and Ming. They are often joined by two human characters: Rita, Akim's partner, and Jim, an orphan boy adopted by the king of the jungle. Minor roles are also occupied by the kings and queens of the various animal species: in particular the elephant Baroi, the lion Rag and the bear Brik.

Akim's historical enemies are also numbered by the dozen, and all of great character and figurative weight: the hungry and devilish black panther Orrg who killed his mother; the bloody Gabon tribe led by the invader Matù, a follower of the idol of Kaha*; science fiction (mad) scientists like Mister Gold, Genius and Doctor Xor; the transforming alien Mixor; the invisible Professor Winter; the masked Atomix, Kadabras and Mysterior; General Samura; the pirate Cin Fu*; the occult Black Spider; the warmongering colossus Kid Motimbo; the monstrous Tiger Prince, Drug and Terror. Not to mention the incursions of disappeared peoples, such as the ancient Romans, Mongols, Vikings, Indians, Arabs, Africans, Martians from Mars and (even) unicorns, minotaurs, monstrous dinosaurs and carnivorous plants. In short, everything and more!

*Armed with rather questionable implications, characters from the fictitious Gabon tribe are likely adapted loosely from uncomfortably outdated Portuguese, French and Spanish depictions of the Beti Pahuin, a widespread Bantu ethnic group subfamily in most tropically forested parts of West Central Africa.

*Although violent piracy is still a highly questionable thing in many tropical waters regardless, Cin Fu’s design was likely outdated even for its day and also by European Union standards.

To get a better idea of ​​the fantastic 360-degree character of the series, just take a look at many of the titles of the books that leave no room for doubt on the issues addressed: "The Timeless Island", "The Hawk Men", "Terror Comes in the Rain", "The Sorcerer's Revenge", "The Vampire Trees", "The Lord of Darkness", "Space Base", "The Queen of the Galaxy", "The Ice Swords", "The land of giant iguanas", "Genius and the super robots", "The man who came from space", "Black ghosts", "The robot idol "," The reptilian men", "Insects invade the world", "Axor, the planet of diamonds ”, and “The Pharaoh's curse" are just a few examples, but certainly not all! Totally, Fantasy was at home in "Akim" and has been for a long, long time!

A Long Essay of Buruuba

The plot of the film based on Baruuba. Credited to a Japanese reviewer. 

In the early Showa period, Seiichiro Watanabe heads to Africa with his daughter Reiko, Reiko's uncle and entomologist Kenkichi, in an attempt to find the whereabouts of her lost friend Dr. Shiga in the hinterland of Africa. Seiichiro's purpose was to find the whereabouts of Dr. Shiga, but in reality, he was looking for the diamond mine leaked by Dr. Shiga's wife.

Seiichiro and three others visited another village as an interpreter for Tokio Shimamura, who was born locally. Then he met a supportive chief and decided to have him serve as a guide for the indigenous people. However, the chief says Dr. Shiga died after being eaten by a lion. Still, Seiichiro tries to go to the hinterland. Tokio asks Seiichiro about the true reason for continuing his safari (exploration trip). On the other hand, the natives tell the party the fact that even the chief did not know. They say that after the death of Mr. and Mrs. Shiga, their son was raised by an old lioness. It is true that Shiga's wife wrote that his son's name was "Takeji" and moved on.

After leaving in search of a shining mountain, the party was attacked by a human-eating race, and Reiko and Kenkichi escaped. However, the remaining Seiichiro and Tokio are caught. The party was supposed to be burned at the stake, except for Reiko and Kenkichi, but since Dr. Shiga had given them a stake in his lifetime, he was taken as a guest. Eventually Kenkichi will join.

Reiko is attacked by a gorilla on her way out. A half-naked young man appeared there and she saved her. The young man always shouted "Buruuba", but he didn't know the word. When Reiko examined Buruuba’s knife, it belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Shiga. Even when Reiko was attacked by the snake, Buruuba stretched her body to get rid of the snake and gradually became intimate with Reiko. As they ride on an elephant and play in the jungle, a gun-shot child appears. Buruuba San, who pulled out the bullet, knew it was the work of a Ningen. Finally, the party found Reiko with Buruuba. Tokio shoots a gun, so Buruuba disappears and only Reiko is brought back.

Eventually, the party found a glowing mountain (diamond mine), but was attacked by part time cannibals. The majesty of Dr. Shiga did not reach their chief. Immediately before being almost executed, Buruuba sends beasts such as lions and elephants to a cannibal village to destroy the village, and Tokio is also eaten by the lion. Seiichiro and Reiko try to bring Buruuba back to his hometown of Japan, but Buruuba, who cannot believe he is a barbaric young Japanese man, jumps into the river and returns to the jungle. Whilst Shaking off her bored stationary father Seiichiro, Reiko follows him and disappears into the jungle.

A Short Essay of Buruuba

Credited to someone else. 

The first full-scale beast movie in Japan, shot by Daiei primarily in California, the United States with the cooperation of Samuel Goldwyn Studios, an MGM spin-off. Yoshihiro Hamaguchi, a former Olympic swimmer known by the nickname “Water King”, codified what was then the hero of the jungle as depicted in Japanese pop culture during the cold war, playing the role of Takeji, aka Buruuba, a character inspired by both Weissmuller’s Tarzan and Baruuba, while becoming a part time actor for the first time. Yuko Yashio codified the jungle heroine for Japanese audiences, playing Reiko Watanabe, a character inspired by both Maureen O’Sullivan’s Jane Parker and Grace.  

Shigeyoshi Suzuki made a so bad it’s good movie (or just so okay it’s average until the ending that spawned two tie ins and two spinoffs would inevitably happen either way, thanks to Daiei being full of greedy impatient higher ups!) based on a now internationally obscure series of adventure novels for boys and men by Yoichiro Minami, with special effects by Yonezaburo Tsukiji of Gamera fame, and music by Akira Ifukube, who was famous due to his heavy score for Godzilla. The title “Buruuba” means “hero”, “respectable person” and “gorgeous” in a fictitious Bantu language (or a fictitious chimp language in all the old novels).

A man who rides a large beast, perhaps a matronly African forest elephant (look closely that it’s in actuality, a lovely female Asian elephant pretending to be someone else from a heavily jungle clad region in another continent!), that traverses into and through the jungle, fights a lion and later a crocodile, with a trusty Japanese short sword (also in the two better spinoffs which followed it) on the belt of his loincloth. Something happens when he screams out loud by saying just his nickname, “Buruuba!”. But he isn’t even a full on Japanese Tarzan, as the closest that Japan has ever had to matching Tarzan (in any other way!) is the titular whinnying and chest pounding gadfly from Taito’s Jungle King/Jungle Hunt Video Game. Even though he grew up with the jungle animals, he’s primarily raised by lions and chimps (mostly included in the novel). 

The Roaring Jungle and other stories 

American explorer Joseph Wilton, along with his friend Frank, entered a dense and ancient semi deciduous tropical forest in what’s now an East African frontier and continued a desperate blood fight with large lions, rabble rousing huge elephants, and voracious crocodiles, and further from North Borneo to North Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, he fights against tigers and deadly snakes. A battle between a person and the wild beasts, alive and dead in partly unexplored areas, is a great adventure story.

The great divide

Given the fact that the Tarzan trademark could well be lasting forever while the ERB written stories are themselves in public domain for most countries, it is both plausible and possible that the canon Tarzan series is still more likely to compete with Dragon Ball and Star Wars than with a huge majority of its own imitators. Oh Fuck Off! 

Although racism is unfortunately common, if not as downright bad, at least in the Tarzan stories written by ERB, it is still more commonly superseded by the fact that Edgar Rice Burroughs himself was a horn dog of a writer in almost any way possible. It’s rather more direct especially in the earliest ones, but that’s mostly due to how ancient they are. As bad as it still is, fanservice gooning was in higher amounts for these ones as well. 

With Edgar Rice Burroughs himself, he was indeed a super notorious gooner, just not to the point of being like HP Lovecraft. In order to balance out, he also had the cash cow kind of taste that fellow pulp magnates would bend and fall for. 

The catch turns out to be something else. Whereas the racism in Tarzan novels (and their numerous adaptations thereof) is more easily researched and studied in good quality, almost all Tarzan researchers do not know and understand that classism and fanservice gooning are a far more insidious pair of realities for them all. 

Kings Comics Checklist

Not written until November 2022

Here’s a wonderful Kings Comics checklist! 

The Dark Horse Tarzan Omnibus: ooh, I’m going to review the first part of the awesome Tarzan Omnibus. While the other issues are on different continuities (making the omnibus more like an anthology rather than a true long form comic book series), the three issues that make up Thomas Yeates’ own take on The Return of Tarzan are so iconic. While Joe Kubert’s take on the same book is highly iconic in its own right, Thomas Yeates’ own take on the subject doesn’t just trounce the latter in terms of drama, it also contains more

grownup subject matter than Russ Manning’s own as well. 

The Jungle Book by Gil Kane: OMG, the Gil Kane comic stories of Mowgli are simply iconic as hell. It screams Disco.

The Scrawny Jungle Girl

Barumba’s Adventures is having a distant sequel in The Daughter of Barumba. 

The title character of such a novel is a girl named Jinni, being partly inspired by Mowgli, Goku and real life cases of feral kids in both south and southeast Asian subcontinents. 

Her father and mother were definitely wild people who pretty much had many kids before she was even born. Her brothers were also teenaged or even young adults at that time. Even as a baby, she was quite beautiful to begin with, which is partly due to the fact that she is the youngest of a whole family in the jungle.