Star Wars: Visions overflows with unique stories and gorgeous animation
The episodic anthology brings together 7 anime studios to create 9 short films, giving new life to the Star Wars franchise.
TV Reviews Star Wars: Visions
When it comes to Star Wars, much of the galaxy far, far away, as general audiences know it, has revolved around the Skywalker Saga. As per Disney and LucasFilms’ recent revision of what “canon” looks like, much of the Expanded Universe was rendered non-canonical, outside of a small pool of feature films. But the wealth of stories that exist outside of the Skywalker Saga shows that Star Wars is often at its best when exploring new plots, diving into characters and planets we’ve never heard of, and experimenting with alternate universes. This is what Star Wars: Visions does best—expands on the themes and histories present within Star Wars while introducing us to fresh faces and concepts in short bursts.
There is no shortage to the beauty that exists within Visions, offering nine unique short films presented by seven different studios, each clocking in between 13 and 22 minutes. Though the studio touts it as a “fresh and diverse cultural perspective,” the episodic anthology is more appropriately described as an opportunity for a variety of incredibly talented Japanese animators to play within a massive sandbox of their own creation.
Take one of Science SARU’s shorts, Abel Góngora’s “T0-B1”, which can more or less be pitched as: what if Astro Boy wanted to be a Jedi? Taking inspiration from Osamu Tezuka’s art style, Góngora creates a playful and compelling journey for a droid who dreams of being a Jedi and what happens when his life is turned upside-down. It’s charming, heartbreaking, and inspiring all at once, and proof that a short film can hold more weight than some of Star Wars’ features themselves (cough The Rise Of Skywalker cough).
Many of the shorts manage to pack a whole lot of story into a small amount of time, giving us only a taste of what each respective universe holds. Some offer a bite-sized story within an established one, like Taku Kimura and Studio Colorido’s “Tattooine Rhapsody.” It takes characters like Boba Fett, Jabba The Hutt, and Bib Fortuna, and adapts them into an almost chibi style, for the sake of placing a delightful rock band in their midst. That the series mostly avoids including familiar faces as fan service is a blessing, with the best ones instead chopping and screwing established lore.
The mere concept of taking Force-sensitive twins like Leia and Luke, and reimagining them as beings born and bred to serve as Sith, is a promising one, and Hiroyuki Imaishi delivers one of the series’ best installments with “The Twins.” From start to finish, the gorgeous animation—one of Imaishi’s best features, as seen in Studio Trigger shows like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Kill La Kill and films like Promare—is what shines here, but the music and the way the episode explores how characters can challenge their fates feels drawn directly from Star Wars. It’s as close to a set piece from the movies as one of these animes gets, full of heart and bombastic battles.
Studio Trigger’s second episode, “The Elder” by Masahiko Otsuka, falls short by comparison. It isn’t just in its clear departure from the aesthetic design that Trigger is known for, but in how soulless it seems overall. Despite some clean and crisp action, and a fascinating villain brought to life by James Hong, the episode as a whole comes across as a pale imitation of any given Obi-Wan and Anakin story from Clone Wars.
Some dubs are better than others in the series, with a talented collection of voice actors paired with the occasional celebrity stunt casting choice. The aforementioned “The Elder,” “Tatooine Rhapsody,” and Production IG’s “The Ninth Jedi” (the latter being one of the series’ most pedestrian episodes, though still chock-full of interesting lore expansion) suffer the most from their English language choices, with actors like David Harbour, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Simu Liu, sometimes coming across as distracting and other times lifeless compared to their Japanese counterparts.
Of the dubs that work surprisingly well, Science SARU’s “Akakiri” (featuring Henry Golding, Jamie Chung, Keone Young, George Takei, Lorraine Tousant, and Paul Nakauchi) and Kamikaze Douga’s “The Duel” (with Lucy Liu and Brian Tee as the leads), are unequivocally the best. It isn’t just that their voice casts bring life to these stories; the narratives themselves are breathtaking to watch. Both shorts are a prime example of how Jedi and Sith stories outside of the staid “good” and “evil” binary are the ones most worth telling.
Eunyoung Choi, the head of Science SARU herself, expertly balances humor and drama in “Akakiri” and brings high stakes to a simple tale that could otherwise have just been a sedate drama. Its weighty dramatic storytelling is a stark contrast to the cartoonish and childlike optimism of “T0-B1,” but no less engrossing and captivating. The unique aesthetic sensibility that made Takashi Okazaki’s Afro Samurai and Jumpei Mizusaki’s Batman Ninja so exciting to watch is what makes “The Duel” pop most. The melding of feudal era Japan and Star Wars’ brand of science fiction and technology is one thing, but its use of black-and-white with only sparse bursts of color and shadow work makes for some of the best animation in the series.
Some episodes take a more low-key approach to existing within the Star Wars universe. Kinema Citrus’ lovely “The Village Bride” is a welcome reprieve from some of the more action-packed shorts. Its focus is on quiet and melancholic storytelling, delivering a contemplative piece that explores how nature and life go hand in hand, and how rituals can provide purpose to those who need it.
Watching Star Wars: Visions sparks a kind of endless wonder that hasn’t been present in the franchise for some time now. By tying itself to the Skywalker Saga or even exploring adjacent stories, the anime series allows its creators to craft some genuinely groundbreaking stories, many of which are deserving of their own extended universes. Geno Studios’ “Lap & Ocho” may be the most deserving of them all, taking all the things that Visions excels at—acknowledging the sociopolitical critiques of the franchise, exploring human nature, inventive lightsaber designs, and stunning action set pieces—and showing them off in under 20 minutes.
That one can imagine dozens, if not hundreds, of stories with Star Wars as the template is a testament to the series’ lasting power. Visions’ exploration of the far reaches of this galaxy rekindles a child-like fascination with Star Wars, pointing to the other works could exist if the anthology continues: Shinichirō Watanabe or Naoko Yamada creating an episode expanding on the famed Cantina Band, or Mamoru Hosoda making another romance between man and beast via Wookie and Corellian. Even without these imaginary future collaborations, the nine episodes of Star Wars Visions that already exist make this one of the best episodic anthologies around.
73 Comments
Tired: turning beloved works of anime into inevitably inferior live action products.Wired: turning over live action western franchises struggling to live up to their potential to talented anime creators and letting them run wild.So excited for this.
It is truly exactly what it should be. Just let me see a bunch of nerds doing different things with lightsabers (although I hope whatever next installment includes some more low key pieces that don’t culminate in Battles)
I really am enjoying the season, but every episode is basically just a different spin on lightsaber battles.(And Kyber crystals play an outsized role in the series. Which is most likely coincidental, since the studios all made their entries in a vacuum, presumably. But I guess if all your stories are about lightsabers, you’re gonna deal with Kyber crystals.)
Yeah, I can see that. So far it still revolved around the Jedis and Siths and everything in between, The Greys. Although anything but them Skywalkers in SW are refreshing to say the least.
I watched the first two this morning before work, the first one absolutely ended in a lightsaber battle, but the second one was an epic concert!Am I to take it then that that episode was an outlier and it’s all Swish Swish, Clang Clang after that?
Uh, yeah. There are far fewer concerts going forward and lots more lightsaberin’.
I’d like to see a little more emphasis on characterization in the (I hope) next iteration of this experiment. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoyed Star Wars Visions and believed it showed the great potential of an anime approach to the franchise both aesthetically and thematically (not that there was ever any real doubt imo). It was a feast of ideas and visuals. But the majority of episodes featured protagonists that were underdeveloped (though usually entertaining) even when factoring in the parameters and limitations of the project. But all that said, I underestimated how much power and freshness could derived from even just the texture an anime approach brings to the Star Wars universe.
Great example: The Animatrix, definitely better than the two sequels.
“..franchises struggling to live up to their potential..”.Get lost, dude. Way to negate all the incredibly hard work being done by hundreds and hundreds of talented people on the Mandalorian, CW, Rebels, The Bad Batch, Rogue One, Solo, and yes, even the unnecessarily maligned Sequel Trilogy.
An odd suggestion. Some hard work goes into pretty much all media–doesn’t mean I have to be satisfied with it.
(I quite like The Last Jedi and Rogue One and about half of the Clone Wars. Mixed on the others).
Volume means success maybe?
How did you get to that conclusion. We know the potential of Star Wars from Star Wars and Empire. It’s totally fair to say everything after has struggled to live up to that potential. Sometimes there have been moments that reached it, but no single movie or series is at the same level.
Don’t question it or have standards, just consume content and be happy.
Wow, way to stand up for the hard-working below-the-line folks.But, talented and hard-working as those people are, it doesn’t mean a damn thing if the writers and directors are doing a shit job.Which has been the case for a large chunk of SW’s theatrical output lately. So maybe….get lost?
His comment was fine and didn’t merit “Get lost,dude” , all he said was “struggling to live up to their potential”. While The Mandalorian and other shows have been great, I really can’t imagine anyone watching Rise of Skywalker or Solo and thinking that Star Wars has been living up to its potential.
Solo is the closest of the modern films to the whizz bang fun of the OT and still the best of the five prequel films.
BTW, it’s probably helpful to add that, while most below-the-liners are extremely hard-working and highly competent/skilled professionals, most of them don’t give a fuuuuuck about the quality of the shows they’re working on.They’re there to do a job and get paid and they do just as good a job if they’re working on a zillion dollar Chris Nolan movie or “Wizards of Waverly Place.”Yes, they have pride in their work and can form a great fondness for the material they’re working on. But, a lot of the time, it’s just a job, they’re focused on a single aspect of the production and don’t have time to care about the big picture.The crew’s feelings aren’t hurt when negative reviews come out, they’ve already been on five other jobs since then.
I know what you mean, but at least they made some decent live action Rurouni Kenshin movies.
Are those good then? The other week I added them to my Netflix watchlist – I don’t know the source material but the subject matter interests me a lot.
They’re not on Netflix! (They’re also good.)
They are in the UK, or at least they were last week.Thanks for the recommendation!
Okay, my mistake. I figured Disney+ was fairly well entrenched in the UK by this point and didn’t know they were still releasing material via different streamers.
Ah, I think we might be talking at cross purposes. I meant the Rurouni Kenshin films are on Netflix.Star Wars: Visions is on Disney+ as you say.
I’m an idiot. Didn’t realize what post you were initially replying to.
Ha don’t worry, we’ve all done it!Kinja isn’t exactly the most intuitive of systems, even when it is fully functional.
The live action Rurouni Kenshin movies are good, even very good (certainly compared to other live action adaptations of anime).
If Asian culture is all over the galaxy in Star Wars then does that mean every culture on earth exist in some form around the universe? Are there Jewish Jedi/Sith? Christian Jedi/Sith? No one is asking these questions. We just accept samurai like Jedi/Sith in Star Wars.
We accept samurai because Jedi were based on samurai. But, no, Earth cultures don’t “exist” in the SW universe.Except diner culture.
The last time I recall Alita Battle Angel was well received by audiences.
I don’t understand the A- rating this site’s entre ranking system seems broken and pointless.
It’s charming, heartbreaking, and inspiring all at once, and proof that a short film can hold more weight than some of Star Wars’ features themselves (cough The Rise Of Skywalker cough).But everyone knows robbing your protagonist of any agency by bringing back the antagonist from the original trilogy with no explanation and saying the reason she’s super special awesome is because said antagonist likes to nut is the best storytelling.How do you not have a good Star Wars story when you basically shove a supporting character from the movie into a glorified cameo so that the director’s best buddy can swipe all of their lines?How can you relate to the characters when you keep trying to shock the audience with fake-out deaths done for momentary shock value and than are undone 5 minutes later?
who was the best buddy?
Yay, they finally made Space Dandy: the Star Wars Edition. Sounds pretty good.
Space Dandy is a show I completely forgot about. I also need to find a site I can watch it on again. I recall more than a few episodes were phenomenal with their plot and premise.
It was wildly variable, which was kind of the point. Having different animators do different episodes gave each one a different tone and rhythm, with sometimes fabulous, sometimes baffling, sometimes idiotic results. I mostly love it.
The full subbed version is on Hulu right now.
Thanks!!!
I think it’s all on Tubi.
Tubi? Better than re-upping my account on Hulu after x number of years.
It’s also on Funimation in the superior dubbed version (it is from the creator of Cowboy Bebop after all).
Curious, if KOTOR is being remade does that re-canonize that lore?
I believe it doesn’t – it will simply be like when they re-release the “legends” EU books, which now just have “legends” written on the cover.
That could wind up being really problematic. Maybe they can just copy Marvel and say Star Wars is a multiverse. Sigh.
Or clarity again this only meant Star Wars The Clone Wars became the only ancillary/licensed product to become “hard canon”.
Why would it be problematic? Star Wars isn’t real.
Conflicting lore becomes problematic in most large universe franchises. It’s why Marvel and DC have a cataclysmic ‘event’ every once in awhile to hit the reset button.
yes, but for some reason, they take canon very seriously. Both fans and the IP holders.
I have a feeling they will, but sorta sneakily. The tricky part about the whole EU stuff is that… it was never about the Old Republic Era. Disney wanted to do post-ROTJ Star Wars stuff featuring the original trilogy’s cast, and there was no way they could do it with all of the baggage of the old EU.And while it’d be preferable in my view to be a bit more choosey about what’s canon and what’s not, just communicating a fresh slate was much easier for everyone involved. Canon is now movies and the Clone Wars series, plus anything that Disney produced after the purchase (excluding SWTOR).But the Old Republic stuff is so far back in the past that it might as well be canon. It doesn’t change anything about the movie era in the lore.But, The Old Republic’s gone a bit… weird in its stuff over the decades, and while general events might be canonizable, the full things? Not really, certainly not all the comics and the many paths of the MMO.So, I could see Disney going “Okay, we’re remaking KOTOR, and we’ll update things a bit to make it canon-compliant (like how all Lightsaber Crystals are Kyber Crystals now), and say it is canon. Everyone likes it anyway, right? Solid ground for some upcoming projects maybe”.
I have a bad feeling that some people won’t be happy until Star Wars is Jedi-free. It’s like Star Trek without Starfleet. You can do it, and it’s fine, but a Starfleet crew upholding the values of the Federation is at the core of Trek. Gotta come back to it eventually.
I was feeling burned out – and burned – by Star Wars so it’s nice to hear the anime anthology is mostly great.Already seen a few of Trigger’s shows (Little Witch Academia, BNA), but I pushed myself to see Promare over the weekend to see the best the studio could do. Breathtakingly beautiful from animation to neon color palette. Sounds like the same for “The Twins” so I can’t wait for that episode.
Is it truly anime or are the breasts realistic and do they avoid panty shots?
No panty shot, no defy-physics endowed woman. Some body get get thru, though.
The closest of fan-servicey you got is in The Twins episode. Well, TRIGGER is behind this episode, the guys of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Kill La Kill anime. Although since this is Disney+ we are talking about, so, it still tame, compared to the studio previous outing.
“Lop and Ocho” dips a bit into the “furry schoolgirl” fetish but not enough to be a distraction.
I just watched the series and yeah, it was weird seeing a rabbit girl in the Star Wars universe, but really it should be weirder seeing so many creatures that appear to be human but can’t possibly be because it’s all taking place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. It was a well done episode though with really nice animation and a character arch that made some sense for someone joining the wrong side because of good intentions.
A rabbit girl was no weirder than Ewoks.
Hell the rabbit girl wasn’t the problem with that one, it was the pacing. So much expository rambling, then suddenly rabbit girl is a jedi and it’s time for a fight that presumably sets up the actual story to be told later.
“When it comes to Star Wars, much of the galaxy far, far away, as general audiences know it, has revolved around the Skywalker Saga.”I’ll never understand that complaint. First of all, the expanded universe has only been rendered non-cannon in 2014, so it existed for most of the franchise’s 44-year existence, and it was only removed so LucasFilms can start fresh. Since then, every TV show (give or take Clone Wars) and video games have occurred outside the Skywalker Saga. More than that, the “Star Wars Story” movies are made to tell smaller stories and it’s very unlikely Rian Johnson’s trilogy will have anything to do with the Skywalkers.The Star Wars universe has always been way more than the Skywalker Saga, just as Lucas has always wanted.
Did you mean “by NOT tying itself to the Skywalker saga”? Since the show obviously isn’t tied to it in any way.
That first episode, WOW! It stays with you. Was that rotoscope animation? I was reminded of Bakshi’s work.
I think that was all cell shaded cgi, but the shading was digitally jazzed up to look like the rough pencils for a manga.
and fake film grain and scratches were added, too!
I loved “The Duel” – Bakshi by way of Kurosawa and Dave Filoni. I was just spellbound for the whole thing.
Here’s my review of the first five episodes:The Duel: GreatTatooine Rhapsody: Silly, cute. Amusing, but could have been better.The Twins: REALLY great.The Village: Nice. Need to rewatch this one, not sure it quite worked for me.The Ninth Jedi: Fucking amazing. One of my favorite SW stories ever!
“The Duel” and “The Ninth Jedi” would absolutely work as feature-length films.
As an old guy I can tell you this is how I felt when I saw the first animated Star Wars during the Holiday Special. THAT’S how mind bending we all thought the series would get. Glad to see this.
I’m kyber six kyber episodes kyber in kyber and kyber it’s kyber not kyber bad.This hyper focus on kyber crystals is starting to feel like a deliberate edict by Disney. How is it all these companies, given total freedom, chose to put such a focus on something I’d never even heard of before KOTOR (and hadn’t heard of since).Also, The Twins was goddamn trash. Yes, it had pretty fights, but as snobby as this site is, I can’t believe you gave writing that contrived and awful a pass.
I was super jazzed for this, but to be honest, it just feels like anime with some Star Wars tacked on. The Duel is by far the best installment both artistically and story-wise. I really enjoyed it and it made me super excited about the rest. I see Love Death and Robots: Star Wars Edition! Nope, it’s the Disney Star Wars at it heart. I’ve only seen 5 of them, and I can’t say anything overtly negative, other than I found the stories kinds bland and times boring. It’s stylized Star Wars. Not a bad thing, but I was honestly hoping for something more than that. Full-disclosure, I like anime feature movies much more than any series. I was hoping for something along the lines of the movies and a lot of this is more like the different series.
Did a lot of these feel like pilots to anyone else? Off the top of my head, “The Twins”, “Lop and Ocho”, and “The Ninth Jedi” each feel like they set up a legitimate series (that I would be deeply interested in). “Lop” and “Ninth” definitely seem the most grounded too, like they could easily be canonized.
‘The Twins’ is definitely going to remain non-canon, just too preposterously over the top, even though it is one of the most visually stunning shorts. I’m just going to outright say it right now, that even if not fully canonized, elements of ‘The Ninth Jedi’ most definitely will be incorporated in a future film. It was the only episode specifically referenced in a timeline of sorts taking place after ROS. Also IMO it was the most Star Wars like of all the shorts.
Welp, the ones I liked the most were the ones least praised here lol. The ender and The Ninth Jedi felt like some of the most lived in and true to the spirit to me
How refreshing, just simple, standalone stories where you feel like you can get in and get out and you got the full offering, how refreshing.*Hold on* I’m hearing there is a tie-in novel already scheduled for 2 weeks from now. Jesus Christ.
Someday, reviewers will be able to give a review of a piece of media without being a dick about another piece of media. Apparently this is not that day.Visions is incredible. The animation is gorgeous and the characters are sketches that feel like smaller glimpses of people with much larger stories. Hopefully season two will get a better reviewer on this site.
I cannot tell you how refreshing it was to have these stories almost all told without any tie-ins, cameos from other characters we know, or a new addition to an existing story. They just made some Star Wars. Every episode can just be judged on its own merit and not how it ties into the cinematic universe or the canon. It’s insane that it feels like a revelation in the year 2021.