La Garde du Roi Lion

When I heard that Disney was doing another cartoon based on one of their best movies, I was excited. I'd heard a lot about the show, and decided to give it a chance. Even if I don't have cable, I have other ways of watching The Lion Guard. All the members of the Lion Guard are cute, being young and all, and the research for the show was well done. They use a lot of Swahili words in their speech. Perfectly appropriate considering the setting is in East Africa.

I don't claim The Lion Guard is better than the Lion King. I do claim that it's fun to watch if you wanted another spin-off of the Lion King. For that, it's worth watching the whole first season just to see how it all starts. I'd heard a lot of not-so-good things about Return of the Roar, so I started with the first episode of the show. And I wasn't disappointed. It's a nice little reunion with old friends.

The show itself doesn´t look terrible but it doesnt look great. It completely changes the characters of Kiara and Simba. But there are a few stand out moments. Such as any of the three episodes with Jasiri (voiced by Maia Mitchell), Jasiri is a friendly, sassy, clever, kind-hearted and overall a very likable character. But overall the show is mediocre because it messes up the first 3 Lion King movies.

My 4 year old enjoys it. I think some of these reviews forget it's for young children

I regard the Lion King as not only my favorite Disney movie, but one of my favorite movies of all time. When I first heard about this show, I was skeptical about the idea of centering on Simba's son Kion. I've seen the first batch of episodes so far and you know what? I love it! Contains all the things that made the movie so successful: memorable characters, zippy music, and a well written story that has some deep themes as well. This one is no exception. It may be a kids show, but there's plenty for adults to enjoy here as well as it contains themes of environmental conservation and racial tolerance (more metaphorical as it was shown in Don Bluth's Land Before Time). The characters are well drawn both in appearance and personality wise as each has his/her own strengths and weaknesses whether in defense or story-wise. I even love the epic intro with a great African Choir singing, plus the way that characters say some Swahili words make this equivalent to what Roger Ebert said about the first movie that it becomes "a learning experience as well as entertainment". Thumbs (and paws) way up!

Overall I enjoy this show. The voice acting is good, the music is pretty good, most of the characters are likable, the animation is good most of the time and the backgrounds in this show look amazing! Also I love Janja. He's by far my favorite character/villain in the show because he's so entertaining to watch and he even gets his own little character arc which leads to his redemption.

One of the things I don't like about this show is Simba and Kiara's new personalities, but they're not the main focus of the show and only have a few episodes revolving around them so it doesn't bother me much.

Another thing I could do without is the magic roar. Kion has a magic roar that can blow his enemies away. Almost every time Kion is faced with a situation that's hard to get out of he ends up using his magic roar to fix it. Surrounded by bad guys? Use the roar. Need to defeat an army of outlanders? Use the roar.

The magical roar ruins any tension this show might've had by having it fix almost all of their problems. It makes the villains seem weak and non-threatening because Kion can just roar them all away and that's the end of it until the bad guys come back and get roared away again in the next episode.

Hell, my favorite episodes are the ones where Kion doesn't use the roar and actually has to fight and use a strategy to win.

(This last one is a bit of a nitpick but they ruined the cheetah designs in this show. They look nothing like the ones in The Lion King)

Basically I think it's a well writen show about teamwork, forgivness, leadership, dealing with responsability, and controling your emotions. The show has some bad qualities but it's still enjoyable.