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Simba is a fictional lion character and the protagonist of one of Disney's most famous animated feature films, The Lion King. He is the son of Mufasa and Sarabi the nephew of the first film's villain, Scar, the mate of Nala and father of Kiara. His name is Swahili for 'lion'.
In the opening sequence of The Lion King, Simba is the new-born son of King Mufasa and Queen Sarabi. After being anointed he is held up by the wise mandrill Rafiki atop Pride Rock for all the animals in the Pride Lands to see.
Simba grows up into a lively and rambunctious, if occasionally arrogant, seven month old young cub who believes that being a king is all about doing what you want all day and going wherever you please. Taking advantage of the cub's naive nature, Simba's scheming uncle Scar tells him about the elephant graveyard. Although Scar tells Simba not to go there, he knows that the young cub will do so out of curiosity. Not only does Simba go, but he also brings along his friend, Nala. When they reach the graveyard they are chased by the three hyenas Shenzi, Banzai and Ed, who are actually Scar's minions. Mufasa comes to the rescue of the two cubs after being informed of their plight by Zazu.
Mufasa is upset with Simba, but resolves to not scold his son, and instead teaches him about the great kings of the past up in the stars, who guide and watch over the young prince.
Later, Scar tricks Simba into waiting in a gorge, saying that Simba's father has a "marvelous surprise" waiting. There, Scar commands Shenzi, Banzai and Ed to start a wildebeest stampede into the gorge where Simba is. Mufasa saves Simba from the stampede, but cannot save himself from Scar. Mufasa falls down off a cliff, and asks Scar to help him, but he let his paws go and lets Mufasa fall down where the raging stampede is. Simba is tricked by Scar into thinking that he was responsible for his own father's death, and that he should run away. Emotionally shattered, Simba does so, but Scar sends his hyenas after Simba in an attempt to kill him. Simba escapes into a patch of thorns and wanders off into the desert. The hyenas do not follow him, deciding that he's as good as dead out in the desert, and just before they leave, they warn him that if he ever returns, they'll kill him.
They were very nearly correct as Simba finally collapses from heat exhaustion. Vultures circle and gather around Simba, but they are scared off by Timon and Pumbaa. Timon and Pumbaa rescue Simba and take him to their jungle home. Intrigued by the idea of a major predator protecting them, the disparate pair introduce the cub to a diet of insects, which Simba finds to be agreeable fare.
Simba grows into an adult lion while living in the jungle. He lives the Hakuna Matata ("No worries, no problems!") lifestyle, but his profound self-recrimination is never far from the surface. The turning point begins when his childhood friend Nala appears, now a fierce young lioness. The childhood friends reconnect and quickly fall in love. Nala later tries to convince Simba to return to the Pride Lands as he is the rightful king. Simba, still deeply guilt ridden by his father's death, refuses both to help her or explain his reasons. He runs off into the grasslands to end their fight, leaving Nala upset and angry.
While Simba is by himself, Rafiki appears and tells Simba to follow him, as he knows where the apparently alive Mufasa is. Simba follows Rafiki across the grasslands and through a patch of thorny vines. Once they reach a pool of water, Rafiki tells Simba to look at his reflection in a pool, but instead of Simba seeing his own face, he sees his father's. Mufasa's ghost then appears in some swirling storm clouds and tells his son that he must go home and take his rightful place as king. Simba realises what he must do and runs home.
Once back in the Pride Lands, Simba confronts his uncle Scar. Scar tells the rest of the pride that Simba was responsible for Mufasa's death, and tries to kill Simba. However, as Simba clings to the edge of Pride Rock's promontory, Scar tells him the truth. An enraged Simba leaps up and pins Scar to the ground, forcing Scar to reveal the truth to the nearby lionesses. A fight ensues as a fiery inferno, caused by lightning striking a dead tree, rages in the background. Nala rallies the other lionesses, including her mother Sarafina and the erstwhile Queen Sarabi, and the lionesses attack the hyenas. Simba wins as Scar, after being thrown over a cliff by Simba, is killed by the hyenas he betrayed. Simba then takes his rightful place atop Pride Rock and roars out across his kingdom.
Some time later, when the Pride Lands are restored to their former glory, the animals gather at Pride Rock once more as Rafiki lifts Simba and Nala's cub high into the air, thus continuing the circle of life.
Simba has matured since the last film and is now really imposing as Mufasa was. He now has a daughter, Kiara, who is stubborn and doesn't always obey her father. Simba lets his daughter out to play in the Pride Lands, but asks Timon and Pumbaa to watch her. It is alluded to that he has preformed such actions before, and that Kirara, despite being fond of her father's friends, does not appreciate the gesture. Most fans intreprete Simba's actions as proof that Kopa, the son that had according to the Six New Adventures stories suffered an unfortunate fate at some point previous to the movie's opening, causing Simba to become over-protective of his newer cub. After he send his friends to keep an eye on his daughter, Timon and Pumbaa begin to argue about bugs and Kiara slips away unnoticed.
Kiara ends up crossing over into the Outlands where she meets Kovu, an Outlander lion whose pride was exiled by Simba as they still saw Scar as the rightful king and Simba as an upsurper to Kovu's elected role as Scar's heir, since Kovu is the lion cub chosen by Scar to ascend the throne. The two play tag until Simba leaps in to confront Zira, a lioness still fiercely loyal to Scar, who was watching the two cubs play.
After the confrontation, Simba talks with Kiara. Kiara doesn't want to be queen as it's "no fun". Simba tells Kiara that she has no choice and that she must do her duty, and that they are "a part of each other." Simba walks with Kiara and explains that they "are one" (the "We Are One" song scene). Kiara seemingly softens her stance, but as Simba ascends Pride Rock, she looks thoughtfully out towards the Outlands.
In the Outlands, Zira forms a plan to assassinate Simba so that Kovu can become the next king. She begins to train Kovu for the task.
When Kiara is grown she heads out into the Pride Lands alone for her first hunt. Simba is naturally worried for her safety (future 'proof' that his previous child may have been killed at a young age), and sends Timon and Pumbaa out to watch her again, against Nala's advice. This time Kiara is outraged by what she sees as her father's interference, and runs off to do her own hunting by herself away from the Pride Lands. Zira sends her daughter Vitani and her son Nuka to start a fire in the dry grasslands where Kiara is hunting. Kiara tries to run from the rapidly spreading flames, but ends up collapsing. Kovu rescues Kiara and asks for entry to the pride. Simba allows Kovu to join the pride, but is suspicious, and admits him only after reminded that he owes Kiara's life to the young Outlander. Even then, still not trusting Kovu, he refuses to admit him into the sleeping den with the other lions, demonstrating continued concern for his family's safety and distrust of the Outlanders.
Simba later has a nightmare of him trying to save his father Mufasa from death, but is prevented from doing so by Scar who morphs into Kovu. Unknown to Simba, Zira has secretly trained Kovu to infiltrate Simba's pride and kill Simba.
Kovu has multiple of opportunities to kill Simba, but his hate, free of his mother's unrelenting conditioning, is drowned out by his love for Kiara, enough to plan to confess Zira's plot and his role in it. He begins to confront Kiara with the truth but Simba catches him first, wishing to apologize for his suspicious behavior and give Kovu an unjudgemental chance to become part of the PrideLands. Simba tells Kovu the truth about the evil lion his mother has trained him to worship, which catches the younger male off guard; it is believed that the lionesses loyal to Scar where not at Pride Rock when Simba defeated him, thus explaining Zira's belief that Simba killed Scar rather than the hyenas who until then were fellow followers of him. Kovu, beginning to understand the wisdom of Scar's exile, and the facts of his death, begins to tell Simba the truth of why he is in the Pridelands. However, before he can explain, Zira ambushes Kovu and Simba while they are out walking, reigniting Simba's belief that Kovu cannot be trusted despite the Outlander's protests against what is happening and his involvement. Simba is injured but leaps up a log dam to safety. Simba's climb dislodges some logs from the dam, which fall and crush Nuka. Zira blames Nuka's death on Kovu for not killing Simba when he had the chance. In anger, she slashes Kovu's face, giving him the same scar that Scar had, which Kovu in fact possessed in Simba's nightmare. Kovu flees back to the Pride Lands.
Simba realizes that Kovu had darker motives in mind when he asked to join the pride, but without the younger lion's input, does not know that Kovu intended to abandon his hatred of the Pridelanders and leave the hate of his mother and clan behind him. Simba exiles him, ignoring Kiara's cries against the punishment. Simba's concern for Kiara's wellbeing causes to him to restrict Kiara to Pride Rock only, another show of the fact that Simba has become over-protective of his child regardless that she is an adult. Kiara is distraught, but Simba explains that he must follow in his father's footsteps and take responsibility for the Pride Lands, whereas Kovu has the responsibility of committing regicide and taking the throne. After an outburst ("You will never be Mufasa!"), Kiara runs into a cave to cry. Her determination to see Kovu again leads her to dislodging a few loose rocks and escaping from Pride Rock.
Meanwhile, Zira plans another attack and wages war on the Pridelanders. Kovu and Kiara find each other again and run back to try to diffuse the anger between their prides.
Simba enters the cave where Kiara was previously, only to find that she has escaped and is visibly angered by the fact that she has disappeared. Zazu then appears and announces the Outlanders' attack. Simba diverts his attention to the oncoming battle, opting to protect the Pride as a whole before searching for his renegade daughter. He heads out to confront the Outlanders onto a muddy plain with his lionesses and Timon and Pumbaa.
As Kiara and Kovu return, they see a fierce, miniature war in progress between the Outlanders and the Pridelanders. After a lengthy battle, Simba and Zira confront each other directly. Before the two lions can land a strike, Kiara and Kovu leap into the middle of the battle and convince the two sides to stop fighting. Simba agrees with them and encourages the Outlanders to put the past behind them (a direct reference to the code or life he lived when he was outside the Pridelands) but Zira, still loyal to Scar, doesn't, snarling that she will "never let it [the past] go." Enraged, she leaps at Simba but is knocked away by Kiara. The two tumble into a gorge where the log dam from the previous fight has weakened and burst. Zira, despite Kiara's attempts to save her, falls to her death into the swollen river. Simba, who had been climbing down to rescue his daughter, and if possible Zira as well, offers Kiara his paw to help her up the rocks before the scene changes.
The two prides, now united, return to Pride Rock, and Simba and Nala look on proudly as Kiara and Kovu are married. Mufasa's voice booms down proudly to his son. "Well done, my son, we are one." The four lions then roar out over the Pride Lands to establish the merging of the prides, and the story ends.
In the 2004 interquel The Lion King 1½, more is revealed about Simba's life in the jungle with Timon and Pumbaa after his exile. Simba (Jonathan Taylor Thomas does not reprise his role as cub Simba for this film, because it had been 10 years and his voice sounds too old and to do cub Simba's voice successfully he was replaced by Matt Weinberg) proves to be a handful, as he scales tall and dangerous trees and swims over waterfalls, not caring about the danger he's in and Timon's frantic efforts to discipline him. As an adolescent, he has beaten Timon in every kind of bug eating contest, along with a snail slurping contest that is shown.
Simba's story has been widely expanded beyond the films to numerous children's books, most notably a set of books titled The Lion King: Six New Adventures, where he has a son called Kopa. Kopa does not make any appearances in the films.
Simba makes occasional brief appearances in the Timon and Pumbaa TV animated series. This includes one episode in which Timon drags him out to try and revive Pumbaa's lost memory. Simba also appears in a music video of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" starring Timon and Pumbaa, which was shown theatrically in front of the film Tom and Huck in 1995.
In Kingdom Hearts he appears as a summon spirit whose world has been destroyed.
In Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, he appears as a summon card.[1]
In Kingdom Hearts II, when the main protagonists (Sora, Donald and Goofy) explore the jungle in the Pride Lands world, Simba almost attacks them, not recognizing them as they were turned into animals due to Sora's clothes. Initially, Simba refuses to go back to the Pride Lands, stating he was "not who he used to be." His father, Mufasa, comes to him and tells him to go back; afterwards, he accompanies Sora, Donald, and Goofy to Pride Rock for a climactic battle with both the hyenas Shenzi, Banzai, Ed and Scar, who had been turned into a Heartless because of his anger and jealousy.
Sora left after the successful coronation of Simba. When Sora returned, Simba had been driven into doubt by rumors of Scar's ghost. He later gained confidence and stood up to Scar's ghost, which was a manifestation of Simba's uncertainty and fear.
Simba has a Limit move with Sora that causes huge rocks to appear and strike opponents, after which he slashes foes - ending, finally, with his summon attack from the first game, Proud Roar.
Cam Clarke voices Simba in the above two appearances, with an archival recording of Jonathan Taylor Thomas used for Young Simba in a flashback sequence in Kingdom Hearts II.