The seven Japanese anime studios that are creating anime short films for Star Wars: Visions have been announced! Disney+ made the announcement with a special look at the series, during Anime Expo Lite. Star Wars is venturing into the incredible world of anime!
A Star Wars fan has created a graphic breaking down the anime studios behind Star Wars Visions ' episodes, displaying each studio alongside the short they created for the anthology, as well as their notable prior works. The anime anthology series was produced by six Japanese animation studios, bringing their unique perspectives to the franchise.
On Tuesday, the company released a trailer for Star Wars: Visions, a series of short animated films that debuts on Disney+ on September 22. Visions will look strikingly different from other animated Star Wars escapades; the shorts were made by seven Japanese anime studios, each with its own distinct aesthetic.
"I'm composing for a Star Wars anime. Specifically, an episode of the new Disney+ series "Star Wars Visions", which is a collection of original animated shorts based in the Star Wars universe. Beyond honoured.
What's exciting is how the seven anime studios (Kamikaze Douga, Geno Studio, Studio Colorido, Trigger, Kinema Citrus, Science Saru, and Production I.G) filter the franchise so comfortably through the prism of Japanese culture.
2 'Star Wars: Visions' episodes for Studio Trigger Another studio that was founded in 2011, Studio Trigger, was in charge of producing two Star Wars: Visions episodes. Studio Trigger is behind some well-known anime such as BNA: Brand New Animal, Darling in the Franxx, and Little Witch Academia.
MAPPA Co., Ltd. Founded in 2011 by Madhouse co-founder and producer Masao Maruyama, it has produced anime works including Kids on the Slope, Terror in Resonance, Yuri!!! on Ice, In This Corner of the World, Zombieland Saga, Dororo, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Attack on Titan: The Final Season.
Kinema CitrusStar Wars: Visions Episode 4, “The Village Bride,” is a look into the culture of a planet and adds to the lore of the Star Wars franchise beautifully. Animated by Kinema Citrus, this episode is directed by Hitoshi Haga and written by Takahito Oonishi and Hitoshi Tani with an ethereal score by Kevin Penkin.
What makes the show special is the incredible nuance given to characters on either side of the conflict. Despite being democratic, the Alliance is quickly revealed to be corrupt to its core, while the Empire's lack of individual freedom can give way to swift and benevolent progress in the hands of the right ruler. The show also places a lot of importance on the small minutiae of military strategy and chess games between commanders, with gargantuan spaceship battles with millions of soldiers, while giving enough time and focus to each of its hundreds of characters to make its world feel lived in. The result is one of the most complex and rewarding anime-viewing experiences ever created.
The show follows a group of high schoolers to form their own anime club at school with the purpose of making their own short films, and all the difficulties that come with it, both creative, practical, and even economical.
The first thing to know about Science SARU is that no two anime it makes look alike. Founded by Animator Masaaki Yuasa and producer Eunyoung Choi, Science SARU never stops experimenting with different animation styles and techniques, being one of the only Japanese studios to use Flash animation. Whether it's an adaptation of Go Nagai's brutal, hyper-violent and hyper-sexual Devilman, a collaboration with Adventure Time, or an anime about table tennis, there is something for everyone at Science SARU.
What better way to prepare for Visions than by revisiting the anime spin-off of a sci-fi movie that started it all? In-between the two Matrix sequels, the Wachowski sisters invited a group of anime artists to completely reimagine the mythos, imagery, and world of The Matrix with nine anime shorts featuring wildly different styles. There's the canonical origin of the Matrix itself, a story of a track-runner breaking the simulation due to an injury, a neo-noir story, and more, animated by the likes of Mahiro Maeda, Cowboy Bebop's creator Shinichiro Watanabe, Redline director Takeshi Koike, and more.
The abyss is a cavernous system full of the remains of past civilizations that treasure hunters from all over the world come to in spite of the many, many dangers that reside in the hole. Riko decides to embark on a quest to find her missing mother and, together with her robot friend Reg, she faces unspeakable horrors.
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure features a unique and instantly recognizable art style that inspired an exhibit at the Louvre. It also boasts an ‘80s inspired soundtrack full of bangers and an endless supply of memes and references that continue to make this long-running anime relevant and exciting for fans.
Kamikaze Douga is the newest of the seven studios working on the show, but despite a shorter resume, it’s still managed to make a big imprint in the mind of anime fans, having worked on the openings for Jojo's Bizarre Adventure as well as Batman Ninja. Its focus is on using 3D CG as a tool to approach the style shading of cel animation. It’s mostly worked on anime openings, commercials and game cinematics like Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth.
Star Wars: Visions is a collection of animated short films presented "through the lens of the world's best anime creators" that offers a new, diverse perspective on Star Wars.
Development of the Star Wars: Visions project began when James Waugh, vice president of franchise content at Lucasfilm, pitched the idea to Kathleen Kennedy at the beginning of 2020.
Star Wars: Visions was released on September 22, 2021, on Disney+. From September 21 to September 27, Disney screened The Village Bride along with movies playing at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles. By November, the studio had submitted the film for consideration for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports a 96% approval rating with an average rating of 8.20/10, based on 49 reviews for the first season.
Studio Trigger, or just Trigger, was able to do two animations in this Star Wars collection and both look distinct from one another. The studio did “The Twins” and “The Elder.” Trigger has made a lot of great anime, despite being one of the somewhat newer companies out there. Trigger premiered with Kill la Kill, which is still regarded by many as the studio's number one production.
It does have one of the best ongoing anime shows though: Golden Kamuy. It takes place after the Russian and Japanese War. The main character, Saichi, is trying to find a lost mountain of gold from the war via a treasure map tattooed across the backs of several soldiers. It’s filled with intrigue, plenty of action, and some amazing looking food .
Kamikaze Douga has made some full productions though including Batman Ninja which was a straight-to-Blu-ray release. It is a reimagining of the popular DC character but in the samurai era. It may not be the best animated Batman movie around but this 2018 film is definitely worth a watch. It fits right into Star Wars: Visions as it is also an anime take on a popular Western franchise.
Studio Colorido handled the production on “Tatooine Rhapsody,“ a more light-hearted episode in the collection. The studio has worked on a lot of shorts and films. It worked on a recent collection of web Pokemon cartoons, including “Poketoon: A Budding Dream” and “ Poketoon: Wait Here, Magikarp .”
Kamikaze Douga did the animation for “The Duel” and specializes in 3D anime. The studio is most known for creating the openings for other anime shows such as the first few seasons of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure .
Geno Studio did the animation for “Lap and Ocho.” As mentioned earlier, BNA would be a good recommendation for fans of this production. As for the company itself, Geno Studio is newer and doesn’t have many shows under its belt.
Production IG did the animation for “The Ninth Jedi,” and the studio is too huge to go through its entire catalog. If a video game has animated sequences, chances are it was made by Production IG. One big one was Persona 5 .
Seven anime studios worked on the anthology series to create their own unique takes on the franchise, and they have all made hugely popular anime series in their own right, like Kill la Kill and Ghost in the Shell.
A number of famous names will be lending their voices to the franchise, including Lucy Liu, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Neil Patrick-Harris.
Science Saru made two episodes, "Akakiri" and "T0-B1." Co-founder Eunyoung Choi directed the first and Spanish animator Abel Góngora directed the second.
Studio Trigger worked on two episodes in the series, "The Twins" and "The Elder." The first is directed by Promare director Hiroyuki Imaishi and the second by his fellow co-founder, Masahiko Otsuka.
Geno Studio and Studio Colorido, both part of Twin Engine, worked on episodes "Lop and Ochō" and "Tatooine Rhapsody," with Yuki Igarashi working on Geno Studio's episode and Taku Kimura directing Studio Colorido's episode.
Kamikaze Douga is the studio behind the first episode, "The Duel," with Takanobu Mizuno acting as director. The studio previously animated the opening sequences for a number of seasons of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
The English language cast of “Visions” runs the gamut of all-Asian actors for shorts like “ The Duel” (with Brian Tee and Lucy Liu) and “The Village Bride” (with Karen Kukuhara and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) to more ethnically varied casts like “The Elder” (with David Harbour, Jordan Fisher, and James Hong) and “The Twins” (with Neil Patrick Harris and Alison Brie).
The seeds of “Visions” first sprouted around the release of 2015’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” in a series of meetings with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy about how to expand the “Star Wars” universe. Between the direct inspiration Lucas drew for “Star Wars” from the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa, the success of the “Clone Wars” animated series, and the vast ecosystem of anime-inspired “Star Wars” fan art on the internet, telling a “Star Wars ” story through the lens of anime seemed like a no brainer.
Kara in a scene from the “Star Wars: Visions” short, “The Ninth Jedi.” Courtesy of Lucasfilm Ltd.
If a character was clearly drawn to be Japanese or from Japanese culture, the producers looked for actors who also fit that description. “If the character was more kind of the ‘Star Wars’ undefined ethnicity, then we were much more agile and really looked for the best voice talent,” says Waugh. “Look, our hope is that people watch the Japanese original version as well. That is what inspired the casting selection. That’s where it all started. And that was the director’s vision for how those characters should be rendered.”
In that spirit, “The Ninth Jedi” is also one of several “Visions” shorts that all but heralds the possibility for future stories. When asked if Lucasfilm is actively working on seeing that possibility through and continuing the stories within “Visions,” Waugh stares at his Zoom camera for a good few seconds with an inscrutable smile.
With the relative freedom afforded by Disney Plus, and a desire to cast as wide a net as possible, Lucasfilm seized on the idea of recruiting a suite of anime studios — each with their own visual specialities and storytelling interests — to make a series of one-off short films. Starting in early 2020, Lucasfilm partnered with Qubic Pictures, a production company that specializes in bridging anime projects between Japan and the U.S., to find the right anime studios in Japan for the project, sort through their pitches, and develop their final ideas into finished films.
These are some of the best known and most talented anime studios currently working in Japan. There are nine shorts coming in total: The Village Bride by Kinema Citrus (Code: Breaker, Made in Abyss) Tatooine Rhapsody by Studio Colorido (Penguin Highway, Pokemon: Twilight Wings) Lop & Ocho by Geno Studio (Golden Kamuy)
The Animatrix put the world of The Matrix in the hands of people like Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe, while Gotham Knight put studios including Production I.G. and Madhouse in charge of Batman. Halo Legends did the same for Master Chief.
By Eric Frederiksen on July 6, 2021 at 3:28PM PDT. When it comes to Star Wars movies, we love them, but we kind of know what to expect.
Halo Legends did the same for Master Chief. In each case, the studio lets the animators play fast and loose with the particulars of their fictional world in a way that a film never could, giving each of the shorts a unique visual style and tone. Star Wars: Visions looks like exactly that.
Star Wars: Visions is an animated anthology series created for the American streaming service Disney+. Produced by Lucasfilm Animation, the series consists of various original stories set in, or inspired by, the Star Wars universe.
The first volume of nine anime short films were produced by seven Japanese animation studios: Kamikaze Douga, Studio Colorido, Geno Studio, Trigger, Kine…
Star Wars: Visions is a collection of animated short films presented "through the lens of the world's best anime creators" that offers a new, diverse perspective on Star Wars. Created outside of the constraints of the franchise's traditional canon, the films provide creative freedom to each director and production studio, while maintaining fidelity to the themes and emotional identity of the Star Wars saga.
Development of the Star Wars: Visions project began when James Waugh, vice president of franchise content at Lucasfilm, pitched the idea to Kathleen Kennedy at the beginning of 2020. To facilitate the international production, Lucasfilm collaborated with independent producer Justin Leach and his company Qubic Pictures, which helped facilitate the discussions between the US-based executives and Japanese studios; this became particularly important during the COVID-1…
Star Wars: Visions was released on September 22, 2021, on Disney+. From September 21 to 27, Disney screened The Village Bride along with movies playing at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles. By November, the studio had submitted the film for consideration for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. The second volume of shorts will be released in early 2023.
In March 2021, it was announced that Del Rey Books will publish Ronin: A Visions Novel, an origin…
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports a 96% approval rating with an average rating of 8.20/10, based on 50 reviews for the first season. The site's critical consensus reads, "Gorgeously animated and wildly creative, Visions is an eclectic, but wholly enjoyable collection of Star Wars stories that breathe new life into the galaxy." Metacritic gave the series a weighted average score of 79 out of 100 based on 15 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews", wit…
• Star Wars: Visions at IMDb
• Star Wars: Visions on Wookieepedia, a Star Wars wiki
• Star Wars: Visions (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia