A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…two worlds of
imagination and wonder are about to meet at last. The Star Wars Saga ventures into the realm of
Japanese Anime, unleashing a whole new kind of experience for newcomers and
veterans of the legendary scifi saga.
From some of the brightest and most talented Anime studios comes nine
unique tales spread across millenia: tales of warriors of light and dark,
dreamers young and old, and adventures both perilous and wondrous. You think you’ve know Star Wars? Great ready
to learn about it all over again.
Star Wars and Anime.
As a lifelong fan of both, I had some high expectations for this Anime
Anthology made in the same vein as The Animatrix and Halo Legends.
The best of the industry comes together for a
celebration of what makes Star Wars unique and amazing.
And adding Anime to the mix can only mean one
thing…a crap ton of stylish Lightsaber wielding action and a deep dive into the
expansive worlds of a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars: Visions has ambition and
it has a lot of heart going into it, a bunch of animators from multiple Anime
Studios have wanted to work on a Star Wars Anime Project their entire
lives.
I can’t say it’s perfect, a few
suspicions I had going in did turn out to be true.
But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t gushing
over several shorts or downright moved to tears.
This is Star Wars and Anime after all.
Good or bad, I was gonna find something to
love…or at least love it more than The Rise of Skywalker (ok I’m gonna try and
keep my Sequel Trilogy bashing to a minimum).
As always when I review something like this, let’s break
down the offerings as we have nine stories from six Anime Studios:
First is
The Duel from
Kamikaze
Douga (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure), where a lone Ronin finds himself the
unlikely savior of a village under siege; next is
Tatooine Rhapsody from
Studio Colorido (A Whisker Away) which finds former Jedi and his rock
band on the run from the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy, Boba Fett;
The
Twins, from Studio Trigger (Kill La Kill) finds a pair Dark Side engineered
Twins locked in a do or die battle over a powerful weapon;
The Village Bride
from Kinema Citrus (Made in Abyss) tells the story of a wandering warrior
finding her inner balance on a peaceful world threatened by war;
Production
IG (Ghost in the Shell) gives us
The Ninth Jedi, where a call to the
galaxy reunites war torn Jedi Knights to rebuild the shattered Jedi Order;
T0-B1,
from
Science SARU (Devilman Crybaby) is the tale of a young Droid who
dreams of being a Jedi Knight; another Studio Trigger offering,
The Elder,
centers on a Jedi Master and his Padawan on the hunt for the titular menace; In
Lop and Ocho from
Geno Studios (Golden Kamuy), two sisters clash
over how to save their planet from the Gelactic Empire, and finally in
Akakiri,
also from
Science SARU, a Jedi returns to a planet that haunts him to
save the woman he loves from a hostile takeover.
The one thing you should notice from all of those short
summaries is: This is a very Jedi focused anthology.
And I get it, Lightsabers and Jedi are the
two things most think of when it comes to Star Wars and with good reason: both
were kind of game changes for SciFi.
And
if it’s one thing Anime was definitely going to do right for Star Wars it was
give us some excellently choreographed and pretty looking Lightsaber battles.
There’s a lot of them and most of them lived
up to my expectations…buuuuut yeah…there’s more to Star Wars than just The
Force and The Jedi.
On occasion, you’ll
see only minor references to both such as in Tatooine Rhapsopy and Lop and
Ocho.
However, there’s not a lot of
space combat and hardly any focus on a Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, Engineer or
anyone who isn’t in tuned with The Force.
I can think of a few who might be turned off by this even if the
plethora of shorts are gorgeous and clearly have a lot of passion and love put
into them.
Next time though: maybe make
Star Wars: Visions 2 a bit more diverse with its story offerings.
Alright, now that that’s out of my system.
Much like Halo Legends or The Animatrix, the
bulk of the short stories in Visions are unbelievably awesome.
The bar was set pretty high with The Duel
right out the gate.
The Duel combines
the best of what most people love about Star Wars and old school Japanese
Cinema.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone the
amount of Akira Kurosawa influence felt in several of these tales, considering
Kurosawa’s work were a major inspiration for George Lucas when working on Star
Wars back in the 1970’s.
The art and
music harken back to those old school Samurai flicks and even the alien village
setting is very Feudal Japan in its design.
It screams Kurosawa but its still Star Wars
all the way with aliens, droids and blasters at the ready.
It’s a good mix of historic and futuristic
that few tales like this can get right.
But it isn’t just Kurosawa Samurai being used for
inspiration.
T0-B1 feels like a direct
nod to Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy from its cute character designs to T0-B1’s
desire to be more than just the adorable Droid he is.
The dark finale of Akakiri feels like a scary
what if to the most infamous moment of The Empire Strikes Back.
The Twins, while seemingly set in the
Galactic Civil War era, could be a call back to several popular plotlines from
The Old Republic era of Star Wars history.
The directors and animators are taking what they love most about the
genre and giving each story their own unique flavor and feel.
Heck, Tatooine Rhapsody made me want to hear
a Pillows/FLCL esque soundtrack for a Star Wars Anime project in the
future.
The two pop culture entities
(Anime and Star Wars) come together almost seamlessly from a visual standpoint.
And yes, the action is as insane as you’d
expect with Lightsabers looking like Japanese Katana’s and being used in crazy
new variations as well.
The amount of Force
action and sword play is staggering and at times, pretty mind blowing (The Duel
once again wins in this regard).
But
when you have a bunch of action heavy Anime studios like Trigger on these
tales, would you be surprised to see a Lightsaber the size of a Star Destroyer
cleave on in half (suck in Admiral Holdo, The Twins Lightspeed Maneuver was way
cooler than yours).
As for how strong each story is, well like any other
Anthology there are hits and misses.
Remember when I said there might be too much Jedi action? Well, The Elder feels like it could have been
cut and replaced with say a Rogue Squadron or Tie Fighter short (so long as
they keep the voice actors…actually I wanna talk about that later). It was the first time after six shorts where
the Jedi dominated the Anime could really be felt I think. At worst, my least favorite episodes had the
problems of either being too rushed or feeling unfilfiled by the
conclusion. I wont accuse any short of
being ugly, no everything was animated spectacularly. The best written works of this collection
have to be The Duel, for being a simple but so amazing nod to Kurosawa Samurai
Epics; Tatooine Rhapsody, for giving us Chibi Boba Fett and a Star Wars rock
band; T0-B1, because the titular Droid never felt annoying and you wanted to
see him fulfil his dream; and I did like Lop and Ocho’s central conflict on the
two sisters and their views on the Galactic Empire. Akakiri had a dark ending but was visually
the most interesting of the bunch (T0-B1 was a close contender for this
spot). The Village Bride might be the
best example of my flaws with the shorts but the pros outweigh the cons cause
of the beautiful designs and the music that was probably my second or third
favorite with The Duel and Tatooine Rhapsody.
It’s a mixed bag of positives and negatives but any Anime Anthology like
this was always going to be that way and that in itself isn’t a praise nor is
it a criticisim.
The voice cast for Star Wars: Visions is…wow. Looking at the list I couldn’t believe who
they got for each short and who got paired with who. It’s the reason why I said, you could remove
The Elder and make it a different story but I still want David Harbour
(Stranger Things) and Jordan Fischer (The Flash) to have roles. I’m just gonna list a few names and tell me
it doesn’t get you excited to hear them in a Star Wars production: Henry Golding
(Crazy Rich Asians), Simu Liu (Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings),
Michael Sinterniklass and Stephanie Shae (Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn), Neil
Patrick Harris (Starship Troopers), Lucy Liu (Kill Bill Vol.1), Cary
Hiroyuki-Tagawa (Mortal Kombat), George Takei (Star Trek). Those are just the ones I could
recognize. And, to keep in the tradition
of continuity, Temura Morrison once again reprises the role of Boba Fett in
Tatooine Rhapsody. Also, I wanna see
most if not all of these guys in a Star Wars movie one day.
Star Wars: Visions is a dream come true, even if some of
those dreams aren’t as good as they could be.
If you’ve come for Jedi Lightsaber action, Anime style, then you’ve come
to the right place. If you’re looking
for an expanded look on the Star Wars Universe, you’ll certainly get plenty of
that too. If you want epic dog fights
and political musings…you might be in less luck because Visions skips over
those in favor of Jedi vs. Sith all day.
The offerings may not be diverse but none of these nine shorts are bad
to look at and show off the best of what Star Wars and Anime have been giving
to the world for the last few decades.
Personally, I enjoyed Visions though I don’t think it reaches the highs
of The Animatrix or Halo Legends. Still,
I cant say it enough: Star Wars + Anime…I was never NOT going to be interested
and I was never NOT going to come away feeling like I just discovered Star Wars
again for the first time. And yes…I
think it’s better than the sequel trilogy (but most things to come out since
then usually are…see, I only kept it to three raggings so there.)
8/10
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