Star Wars: Visions, an anime anthology based on the Star Wars universe, will release on Disney Plus from September 22. A first look video has been revealed, too, showing off what some of the shorts look like.
Seven studios are working across nine shorts for the project. Kill la Kill studio Trigger is working on shorts called 'The Twins' and 'The Elder'. Japan Sinks studio Science Saru is working on shorts called 'Akakiri' and 'T0-B1'. Other companies working on the project are Kinema Citrus ('The Village Bride'), Geno Studio ('Lop & Ochō'), Studio Colorido ('Tatooine Rhapsody'), Production IG ('The Ninth Jedi') and Kamikaze Douga ('The Duel').
Crucially, these stories aren't canon, with Lucasfilm giving creators the opportunity to use either familiar characters or their own creations in telling a story. All the studios are made up of Star Wars fans, as you might expect.
Expect some vast differences in visual style between the shorts. 'The Duel', for example, will be presented in black and white, with sparing use of color during lightsaber battles.
Check out the first look below:
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Why the anthology approach?
Strangely, this seems to be Hollywood's preferred approach to adapting its big properties for anime.
The Animatrix was the first anthology based on a popular movies series in 2003, presenting inventive and bleak original stories set in The Matrix universe. Gotham Knight followed in 2005, with numerous production houses contributing their own stories based on the Batman character. Halo Legends landed in 2010, offering various takes on that game and its sci-fi universe.
Those were all made for the home video market, which is no longer the force it once was. But Disney Plus is the ideal venue for a project like Star Wars: Visions – especially as people wait for The Book of Boba Fett to launch in December, and with anime at more firmly at the center of pop culture in the English-speaking world than it's ever been.
Check out our selection of the best anime if you want suggestions of shows to check out from our panel of experts.
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