| “ | You win today, Kion. Next time won't be so easy. | „ |
| ~ Janja warning Kion that their fight is just beginning. |
| “ | Janja: Yeah. I think we're on the right side now. Jasiri: You sure are. Janja: You know, I think I could get used to that laugh. |
„ |
| ~ Janja's redemption after he turned against Scar. |
Janja is the main antagonist of the 2015 Disney Junior TV film The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar and one of the three main antagonists (alongside Scar and Makucha) of its 2016-2019 follow-up series The Lion Guard, serving as the main antagonist of the first season, the central antagonist of the second season and a major antagonist-turned-supporting protagonist in the third season.
He is the head of a teenage clan of hyenas in the Outlands, who are descendants of the hyena clan who served Scar. His also the former arch-nemesis of Kion, the protagonist of the series. After many failures, Janja and Ushari summon Scar's spirit back from the realm of the dead and form an army with other inhabitants of the Outlands to conquer the Pride Lands, though he starts slowly realizing the error of his ways eventually.
He was voiced by Andrew Kishino, who also voiced Mitsuru Shinehara in Regular Show.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
- While hyenas need to eat just like any other animal in the series, Janja and his clan are presented as greedy and eating more than their fair share. Furthermore, Jasiri, another hyena, explains to Kion that hyenas normally respect the Circle of Life, and they are scavengers who clean up after other animals have finished eating. Also, Janja is presented as sadistic and takes great joy at the prospect of killing other animals which shows that he is not doing it just because he needs to eat.
- Most of the time he is verbally abusive towards his henchmen, referring to them as "fur-brains" and at one point he even kicks Cheezi and Chungu out of his clan because he thinks they are constantly ruining his plans.
- In a flashback which shows the characters as very young children, Janja and his two henchmen, Cheezi and Chungu attempt to steal an egg and eat it but are stopped in time by Kion, Beshte, Fuli and Bunga. After this, Ono spawns from the egg and becomes friends with his rescuers.
- Janja and his clan regularly go into the Pride Lands to kill and eat animals sometimes in great numbers. While nobody is shown dying, the only reason for that is because the Lion Guard always ruins his plans before he is able to kill anyone. He does this in nearly every episode which makes listing all of the different instances when he does it redundant. Some more notable examples of this include:
- In the pilot episode, Return of the Roar, Janja organizes his clan as well as the vultures to go into the Pride Lands and take as many animals as they can before the Lion Guard is formed. Janja even proclaims that they are going to take "whole herds of animals". Later they chase a herd of antelopes before the Lion Guard drive them away.
- Janja sees five kids while strolling through the Pride Lands in search for prey and decides to attack them and eat them which shows that he is not above killing kids. When four of them manage to escape after spreading out, Janja orders his henchmen to focus all their efforts on a young elephant cub. By the end of the episode the Lion Guard manages to save the elephant and the hyenas lose their prey and they themselves are chased by crocodiles.
- Janja and his clan attack a herd of impalas with Janja joking that they are invited to dinner as the main course. When the Lion Guard ruins their plans, they instead capture a drongo (a bird that can imitate different voices) named Tamaa and force him to imitate Kion's voice and tell the herd of impalas to go to the Outlands under the threat that they would eat him otherwise. When their plan works, Janja refuses to release Tamaa and says that he would keep him as his prisoner forever because he is useful and attempts to kill and eat the whole herd of impalas before he is stopped by the heroes.
- During one of their ventures into the Pride Lands to hunt some gazelles, Janja and his clan try to kill Nala Kion's mother, when she spots them and tells them to go back to the Outlands before Kion himself intervenes. He and his clan also try to kill herds of zebras on a few occasions.
- Tries to kill the members of the Lion Guard on multiple occasions, so he and his hyenas could feast on as many animals as they want.
- He tries to kill a fellow hyena, Jasiri, for crossing his turf, before she is rescued by Kion.
- Tricks Kiara into meeting with him to supposedly negotiate peace. Then, he and his hyenas capture her and tell her that if her father Simba, doesn't hand the Pride Lands over to them, they are going to harm her, but the Lion Guard arrives just in time to save her.
- Tries to kill a young jackal cub, Dogo, for trespassing his den. When the Lion Guard saves the cub and Janja hears that they are planning to invite Dogo over to the Pride Lands, Janja is delighted because he knows that the jackals are tricksters, and they would pretend to be nice but then would try to eat a lot of animals once they have won the Pride Landers' trust. He mockingly wishes them "Merry Kupatana" without telling them any of this and runs away with a sadistic laugh.
- In the Outlands, Janja and his henchmen try to kill a whole group of klipspringers before the guard ruin their plans.
- He tries to kill three baboons after he had caught them stealing food from his den before the Lion Guard rescues them.
- When Janja and his henchmen find Ushari, at first, they want to eat him. Then, when Ushari tells them that they could revive Scar, Janja decides to unite with Ushari and the two of them revive him. This makes both Ushari and Janja partially responsible for everything bad that Scar does after his revival and later willingly aids him in many of his schemes.
- Janja and his clan attempt to kill Jasiri after Scar orders them to do it. Even after he sees that there are two hyena cubs playing with her, Janja simply decides to kill them all even though Scar didn't say anything about the cubs. He pushes the three of them into a steam vent and is delighted that they would burn to death once the vent explodes. This shows that Janja is willing to kill cubs belonging to his own species in extremely brutal ways. By the end of the episode, the Lion Guard shows up and rescues Jasiri and the cubs.
- Under Scar's orders, he and his clan try to kill Rafiki while Reirei and her jackals distract the Lion Guard, but they fail miserably when Rafiki shows martial skills and successfully defends himself and the Lion Guard also arrives.
- When Scar decides to assassinate Simba by sending a deadly scorpion to sting him, under his orders, Janja and his clan along with other members of Scar's army ambush Kion and the Lion Guard and attempt to prevent them from reaching the antidote needed to save Simba's life.
- He and his clan attempt to steal a couple of Tikiti melons from the elephant herd with the help of Kenge to make sure that the elephants won't have enough water during the Dry Season which would result in their deaths.
- He, along with Scar's other followers like the vultures, the jackals and the crocodiles, drive away the elephants from their territory in the Pride Lands by burning it to ash and then occupy it to prevent the Lion Guard from retaking it.
- Under Scar's orders, Janja and his clan tried to drop rocks in the top part of the Hakuna Matata Falls at night to block the river from flowing. While at first Janja doesn't understand why this would be bad for the Pride Lands, Scar and Ushari assure him that cutting off a major water supply to the Pride Lands in the middle of the dry season would be very bad for them, and Janja then goes through with his orders. Janja stands out for this action because he and his clan carried it out alone and don't share responsibility with the jackals or the crocodiles unlike some of the crimes they did under Scar and had their plan succeeded, the Pride Lands would have been subjected to a horrible drought. By the end of the episode, the Lion Guard stops him and chases him out.
- When Scar learns that Jasiri is not dead and her clan are helping the Lion Guard, he orders all his followers, including Janja and his clan to ambush and slaughter Jasiri and her hyenas. Before they are able to do it, the Lion Guard shows up and saves Jasiri's clan.
- Joins the army of Scar in taking over Makuu's watering hole even personally fighting him himself.
- Traps the Lion Guard in the lair so that they will be burned by Scar's army.
- While not as evil as Ushari, Scar, or Zira, he stands out for being responsible for Scar's spirit coming to life by sending Ushari to get more information on how to do the deed which ends up with Scar forming an army, The Lion Guard being absent during the fight against the Outsiders, and the formation of Makucha's army in the first place.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- While sometimes he is portrayed seriously, Janja is subjected to a lot of slapstick humor which detracts from his villainy. His stupidity is often played for laughs by the story, his frustration over his henchmen who are even more stupid than him and his defeats at the end of most episodes are often played for laughs.
- In several cases he is shown as insecure about his plans and some of them he regrets (for example, sending Cheezi and Chungu away), which is sometimes played for sympathy.
- He is played for sympathy throughout Battle for the Pridelands (as well as several episodes in Season 2).
- He redeems himself in the third season. When he sees that the hyenas of his clan are in danger because Scar has double-crossed them and has ordered the other members of his army to start a fire and trap them along with the Lion Guard, Janja turns against Scar and unites with Jasiri. Later, he allies with the Pride Landers against Scar and tries to give them advice on how to defeat him. After Scar's spirit is destroyed, Janja suggests that Jasiri should rule the Pride Lands, joins her clan and starts following the Circle of Life, becomes friends with the Pride Landers and attends Kion's wedding with Rani. Also, sometime during the story, he, Jasiri, Fuli and Azaad help a group of klipspringers get to safety and he shows willingness to unite with the others and fight against Zira, Vitani and her pride when they return.
- He cares about several characters:
- Despite fighting Kion and the Lion Guard a lot, he does gain respect for Kion and his roar to the point where he joins up with the Pridelanders, he stays confident telling Kion that he needs to use the most powerful roar he has got to beat Scar.
- When Kion leaves to get his scar healed Janja looks at him with remorse feeling bad that he was indirectly the reason Kion got scarred since he revived Scar in the first place.
- While he is abusive towards his henchmen most of the time, it's still shown that he cares about them as when he sees them trapped in a fire, he is visibly worried about them and even teams up with Jasiri to rescue them.
- Although he initially tried to hurt and even kill her, his opinion of her changes throughout the series. While it's not outright confirmed in the show itself (even though "Word of God" confirms it), there is a lot of indication that Janja is in love with Jasiri even before his redemption. He calls her "fearless", describes her smile as "cute" and while he sings about how much he hates her in front of Scar, Jasiri is visualized in a way which shows that Janja is attracted to her and when in the song Kion dances with Jasiri, Janja grabs him and blows him away from her which indicates jealousy. When Jasiri saves his life, Janja is really confused about why she would do it and when his clan is in danger, she is the first person he thinks about asking for help. After his redemption, the two of them are shown to be very close and Janja willingly joins her clan and proclaims to everyone in the Outlands that Jasiri should be the one to lead all the Outlanders, maintain the Circle of Life and keep the peace between them and the Pride Lands.
External Links[]
- Janja on the Villains Wiki
- Janja on the Heroes Wiki
- Janja on the Disney Wiki
- Janja on the Lion King Wiki
- Janja on the Lion Guard Wiki
