Osamu Tezuka's 1951 manga adaptation of Walt Disney's 1942 adaptation of Bambi.
Do not confuse with the manga Bambi And Her Pink Gun, which has as much in common with Bambi as Thumper does with Bambi's rabbit friend.
Tropes:
- Adaptation Expansion: The retelling adds some content that wasnt in the movie, such as a scene where the Great Prince rescues a young Bambi from a pack of wolves.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Bambi himself gets a downplayed instance of this. While he's more or less the same character as he is in the movies throughout it, as an adult he briefly gains an arrogant and haughty attitude after defeating Ronno and evading Man. He gets over it after this change in attitude results in him unwittingly starting a forest fire, prompting him to immediately owe up to the consequences of it.
- Adapted Out: Flower is completely absent from this adaptation, and his role in the tale is filled in by Buckteeth the beaver.
- Canon Foreigner: The manga introduces some new characters that weren't in either the Felix Salten novel or the Disney movie, such as Buckteeth the beaver and Grandpa the frog.
- Comic-Book Adaptation: Or rather, a manga adaptation of the Disney movie.
- Demoted to Extra: Friend Owl technically does exist in the manga, but he's reduced to a one-panel cameo appearance. Grandpa the frog fills in for his mentor role instead.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Ronno as a fawn makes his first appearance early in this manga, decades before he would appear that way in an official Disney work.
- Jerkass Ball: Bambi briefly picks one up when he becomes uncharacteristically arrogant and haughty after defeating Ronno and evading Man. He drops it as soon as his bad attitude unwittingly kicks off an entire forest fire.
- Kissing Cousins: The manga reinstates Bambi and Faline's relationship as cousins by explicitly referring to Faline's mother as Aunt Ena, which was (presumably) dropped from the Disney adaptation.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Bambi is notably portrayed as a more flawed and fallible character than he was in the movies or even the books on two separate occasions.
- As a child, he is indirectly responsible for his mothers own death. During winter, he foolishly enters one of Man's cabins with Thumper and, after baking a cake, naively trying to make off with just half the cake while leaving the other half for Man. This provokes the cabins owner into chasing after them with a shotgun, prompting Bambi's mother to sacrifice herself to save their lives.
- As an adult, Bambi briefly becomes incredibly arrogant and haughty after defeating Ronno and evading Man. During this, he stumbles across a leftover campfire and, after burning his hoof on a hot piece of coal, angrily and recklessly kicks at the fire out of spite, which unwittingly kicks off an entire forest fire, endangering all of its inhabitants in the process. This even results in him having to save his own father's life, as opposed to the movie where its the other way around.
- Sliding Scale of Adaptation Modification: The manga hovers between a type 2 (Recognizable Adaptation) and type 3 (Pragmatic Adaptation). The basic story of the Disney movie is kept intact, but expansions are made on the story (such as giving Ronno a role as a fawn, having the Great Prince rescue Bambi from a pack of wolves in his childhood) and there are some notable alterations to how some of the events play out (such as the circumstances that led to Bambi's Mother dying and how the forest fire started), as well as Bambi's own personality getting some tweaks. On top of that, one of the original main characters (Friend Owl) is reduced to a cameo appearance and is otherwise filled in for by a new character, while another (Flower) is straight up replaced with an entirely different character altogether.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: As an adult, Bambi briefly gets a big head after defeating Ronno and evading Man, to the extent that he acts rude and haughty to even his closest friends. This immediately bites him in the flank big time when his bad attitude culminates in him indirectly kicking off an entire forest fire. Naturally, he ditches it right afterward, especially as he selflessly risks his own life just to save his unconscious father from being gulfed by the flames.
