Star Wars: Visions - Kyuuninme no Jedi

Star Wars is one of the biggest IPs in media which needs no introduction. Star Wars Visions was created to give Japanese studios the opportunity to explore new ideas in the Star Wars Universe. As Visions presents itself as an anthology collection. "The Ninth Jedi" is a follow-up of two episodes in the Visions Anthology. Note before you watch this series you need to watch Volume 1 Episode 5 and Volume 3 Episode 3. It follows a young Jedi named Kara who is seeking her father. While she trains under Jedi Master Juro. This is set in a timeline far in the future where the Jedi Order is collapsed and lightsabers itself are scarce. What is very interesting about this series is that the saber's color represents what is in the holder's heart. Obviously you have the typical blue and green representing the light side and red representing the dark side. But we have silver which is more unique. The idea of a grey Jedi who is neither light nor dark has been something in the old canon of Star Wars. One of the strengths of this series is how it explores that. What does it mean to be a Jedi or Sith? What does the color of your light saber mean? It takes many things we see as common in Star Wars canon and questions them. The answers it provides aren't black or white which is very nice. As typical of Star Wars we have the hero's journey as we follow Kara. She starts fully believing in the path of the Jedi, but things happen that may or may not question her beliefs. The unique part of the show of the saber changing colors plays an important part in Kara's journey in the series. Production wise Production IG has animated this and they did an outstanding job here. Outstanding animation and art direction. One thing to mention right now is that Disney+ only has English CC and no actual English subs of the Japanese dialogue. So if you are a subs-only purist this might bother you. But having watched the English dub, I thought it was very good and the English voiceover did their thing for the cast. If you are a Star Wars fan don't let the fact that it is noncanon keep you from watching this. It's a very interesting and very good series.

As a huge fan of the Visions series, this was a HUGE let down. Great visuals, sound, music and an authentic vision of the star wars universe. But that's about it. The story isn't weak in and of itself, although pretty generic, and one could say, kind of a copy/paste of a couple different SW movies, but it's the execution that is plainly horrible. Some of the weakest writing I've ever seen in any story telling. It's so over the top in it's use of plot armor and contrived situations not to mention that characters are generally flat, dull, and inconsistent. Motivations make no sense and of course contradict themselves depending on the scene. Personally, I can't understand how something so masterfully made allowed such a garbage story. We have AI now, and they could have just fed the script into any AI engine and fixed most of this but for whatever reason they chose to script this nonsense. A real shame. Visuals 9 Sound/Music 9 Voice acting -5 Story -2 I wish I hadn't watched it.

Before getting into the series itself, I'd strongly suggest watching the two Star Wars: Visions episodes that started this story: The Ninth Jedi (Season 1) and The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope (Season 3). They're not strictly required, but this series begins exactly where those episodes leave off, so they really are the first two chapters of the same story. The original episode was written and directed by Kenji Kamiyama (GitS SAC, Eden of the East), while Child of Hope was directed by Naoyoshi Shiotani (Psycho-Pass). With names like those attached to the project, the level of quality shouldn't come as much of a surprise. They're also among the highlights of Star Wars: Visions. If you're into anime, Seasons 1 and 3 are especially worth watching, as they're entirely made up of anime shorts, unlike Season 2, which showcases animation studios from around the world. As for the series itself, it absolutely delivers. It has a great story that is well told, interesting characters with better development in 8 episodes than many anime manage in 80, fantastic animation, and it never once treats the viewer like an idiot. Everything is coherent and works perfectly. There are obviously a few moments where things feel a little rushed, but that’s understandable given the limited number of episodes it has to work with. If you're both a Star Wars and anime fan, this is an easy recommendation, but I don't think you need to be a Star Wars fan to enjoy it either. At its core, it's simply a well-crafted sci-fi adventure with likable characters and a story that's easy to get invested in. Production I.G. once again delivers exactly what you'd expect from them, with consistently excellent animation, fantastic action choreography, and top-tier production values throughout. The lightsaber fights are dynamic, the sense of movement is superb, and unlike many recent Star Wars productions, lightsabers are treated like the deadly weapons they're meant to be. Battles have real weight, and the series doesn't shy away from showing the consequences of combat. The soundtrack deserves praise as well. It naturally draws inspiration from the iconic Star Wars musical language and leitmotifs, but it also builds its own identity with an original soundtrack that fits the series remarkably well. That said, I still think the two standalone Visions episodes are the stronger works. Ironically, despite Kamiyama returning to direct (as supervising director) the series, he isn't the main writer this time, and I think that's noticeable. The original episodes felt fresher, introducing ideas and concepts that stood apart from traditional Star Wars storytelling. One of my favorite examples is the concept of lightsabers changing color depending on the nature of the person wielding them. I think it's a genuinely brilliant idea. It may not sit well with Star Wars purists since it doesn't align with the traditional canon, but it's exactly the kind of creative reinterpretation that made Visions so exciting in the first place. It also adds an extra layer of intrigue to one of the central characters, using the lightsaber itself as part of the mystery. By comparison, the series itself leans much closer to classic Star Wars territory: an evil Empire developing devastating superweapons, Jedi in exile searching for allies while bringing conflict to distant worlds, mysterious masked villains... None of these are bad ideas (they're staples of the franchise for a reason) but they aren't nearly as novel as what those original shorts proposed. Even the protagonist's personal journey echoes Jyn Erso's arc in Rogue One, which remains, in my opinion, one of the best stories in all of Star Wars. Far from being a criticism, I actually saw it as a strength. So while this series doesn't feel quite as bold or inventive as Kenji Kamiyama's original standalone (Complex!) The Ninth Jedi episode, it's still an excellent continuation. Expanding that initial concept into a full-length series almost inevitably meant embracing a more traditional Star Wars structure I think. Even then, I still found the story and characters stronger than much of modern Star Wars. As someone who has always believed that the Expanded Universe produced some of the franchise's best stories, Knights of the Old Republic being the obvious example, this series is another great example of why I feel that way. It doesn't reinvent the universe, but it tells a compelling story within it, with characters I genuinely cared about. It's also worth mentioning that, despite bearing the Star Wars name, this doesn't feel like one of the many forgettable Disney-era SW productions. It shares far more DNA with other anime in the platform, such as The Fable and Summer Time Rendering, than with the more formulaic live-action SW output. It feels like an anime first and a SW project second, and that's exactly why it works so well. Overall, while I still prefer the two Visions episodes that came before it, this is an excellent continuation and further proof that Star Wars is at its best when talented creators are allowed to leave their own mark on the galaxy instead of merely following a formula. I sincerely hope we get many more projects like this. I highly recommend it.

English: I find the series pretty average overall. A wasted potential when it comes to writing quality. The writers take the easy way out, making many things far too simple for our characters. The power scaling is terrible, and there’s a lot of plot armor. A lot of things are taken from older Star Wars shows and movies. In general, most things happen way too quickly and aren’t explored enough. Still, the story and action scenes aren’t bad. 6/10 Türkçe: Yazım kalitesi ile harcanmış bir potansiyel Yazarlar kolaya kaçarak çoğu şeyi karakterlerimiz için çok basitleştirmiş Güç dengelemesi berbat ve çok plot armor var Çoğu şey eski Star Wars dizi ve filmlerinden alınma Genel olarak çoğu şey çok hızlı geçiliyor ve fazla işlenmiyor Ama yine de hikayesi ve aksiyon sahneleri fena değil Diziyi ortalama buluyorum 6/10

As a Star Wars fan for life and a pretty big anime fan as of the past few years, I was pretty excited for the first full length Star Wars anime, and pretty disappointed when it turned out to be... well, mid. I'll get the good out of the way first; the worldbuilding and design work throughout the entire show is pretty stellar. Starships, droids and locations feel fresher than they have for years in the Star Wars galaxy. The animation, while a little CGI-heavy at times, is also pretty good. I know character designer Tetsuya Nishio's art style isn't for everyone, but I honestly really enjoyed it here, and the final episode in particular has some really standout sakuga that impressed me big time. I watched the English dub, and the voice cast are also, by and large, pretty solid. Masi Oka as Ethan gives a particularly charming performance that I really gravitated to. I also liked some of the storytelling territory covered here; there are some reasonably interesting musings about morality and emotion that feel pretty different from what we've seen before in Star Wars, and I appreciate that. Now for the bad. The story... woof. The pacing is Not Good. Eight episodes is not a whole lot of time to work with, even if most of said episodes are 30+ minutes. This show does not use them wisely. Several episodes are dedicated to plotlines that border on filler, forcing the remaining episodes to deliver the main plot and character arcs in incredibly hasty fashion. This wouldn't necessarily spell the show's doom if the writing were actually any good, but it's not. The majority of the dialogue is bland exposition, rarely if ever giving us any view into the character's inner worlds and feelings. As I mentioned before, there are some interesting ideas the show toys with, but screenwriter Mitsuyasu Sakai fails to turn any of these ideas into cohesive themes or messages. The entire plot feels half-baked, and wastes too much time on rehashing ideas from the live action movies when it should have zeroed in on its own concepts. The result is a forgettable adventure with little in the way of real excitement or emotional spark. The show also suffers from a pretty severe case of cast bloat; there are far too many side characters than the series knows what to do with, and as such quite a few of them contribute little to nothing (I'm looking at you, Homen). As for the sound, I really can't describe Nobuko Toda and Kazuma Jinnouchi's score any more charitably than as a "Temu John Williams soundtrack." It brings nothing new to the table and feels like it has no purpose but to emulate the feel of the movies' music, and does so poorly. The sound design is similarly subpar. There are plenty of moments with noticeably poor sound coverage, where things that you would expect to have sound effects associated with them don't. Several of the sound effects that actually are here feel bizarrely out of place (the Kyber Crystal Cannon in particular), and as such the overall audio is rather inadequate. There's no OP or ED either, and given that the Star Wars franchise has frequently boasted fantastic and iconic sound design and music, The Ninth Jedi let me down in this department. To be honest, I probably would have given this show a Not Recommended review, but it's so short and inoffensive that that feels unfair. If you have a strong interest in Star Wars and/or really enjoyed Star Wars: Visions, you might be able to derive some enjoyment out of this, but otherwise it's not a particularly worthwhile series.

Long-time Star Wars fan, but, well, I guess since it was bought, I haven't enjoyed most of the things that have come out from it. I mostly just like the Old Republic era now. I think if I called it anything, it would be refreshing. I think partly because it's Star Wars, it has that vibe, but it's not burdened by the main timeline; it can still feel like Star Wars without caring about any Skywalker or other stuff. They even played with the grey Jedi stuff and what it means to be a Jedi or a Sith and really blurred the lines with it. Nawaan, the main villain, is technically a Jedi too; depending on how you define Jedi, his lightsaber is blue. I only have a few minor gripes with the ending. I wish they did more interesting races. They basically just did space dwarfs and elves for two of them, but admittedly I really like the space dwarfs ships. I think Nawaan isn't as super complex as he could've been, though, but I don't know if that's the worst thing in the world. I hope they do more, but if they don't. I think this is satisfying on its own.

I really enjoyed this series overall. I don't know if I would say it is as good as the original short from the Star Wars: Visions series, but it is definitely better than the short that came in Visions season 3. Visions in general is probably my favorite thing that the Star Wars IP has put out, and that still goes double for this series. I love the story of Kara finding her father and the questions brought up with the lightsaber colors. It is an excellent way to get the audience involved in the story, making us question these characters' allegiances. One thing that surprised me most about this series was the way that, despite all the lore changes and not being connected to canon, they still managed to tell a story that felt very much like a classic Star Wars story, and that was a really surprising and impressive feat to see.

No! I do not know how this story, out of all the others from Visions, was greenlit to be expanded upon. The story basically revolves around "Ultra Instinct" chasing lightsabers. Why the color of a lightsaber matters is unknown to me, as they all do the same thing regardless. Here we have another neo-Disney villain with no real motivation and no real consequences. Many of the characters were forgettable and had no purpose throughout the entire show. This is just another feel-good and safe story with recycled tropes we have seen a dozen times now in the Star Wars universe. Highly predictable and boring characters all around.