STAR WARS: VISIONS SERIES REVIEW

It’s no secret that George Lucas drew inspiration from Japanese culture when creating the world of Star Wars. Now Lucasfilm returns the favor by teaming up with several prominent Japanese anime studios (Kamikaze Douga, Studio Colorido, Geno Studio, Trigger, Kinema Citrus, Production I.G, Science SARU) to produce “Star Wars Visions”, a new series where Japanese storytellers explore the themes of Star Wars, from a certain point of view. Each non-canonical short features all new stories, characters, and planets, and is defined by its own individual animation style. With the exception of one episode, no legacy characters appear, and the animators were free to set their stories anywhere within the established Star Wars timeline. Considering how central samurai and Eastern philosophy are to both Japanese culture and Star Wars, it’s no surprise these shorts focus heavily on the Jedi. Still, there is enough aesthetic and tonal variety here to appeal to both Star Wars and anime fans. Harmoni, Tessa, Spider-Mike, and Marco convened a meeting of the Jedi Order and search their feelings about this new streaming series . Is “Star Wars Visions” strong with the Force, or did our critics get a bad feeling about this? To find out, listen to the review you must. Listen. Or do not. There is no try.

WATCH HERE

DIRECTED BY: Takanobu Mizuno, Taku Kimura, Hiroyuki Imaishi, Hitoshi Haga, Kenji Kamiyama, Abel Góngora, Masahiko Otsuka, Yuki Igarashi, Eunyoung Choi

STARRING: Masaki Terasoma, Brian Tee, Akeno Watanabe, Lucy Liu, Yūko Sanpei, Jaden Waldman, Hiroyuki Yoshino, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kōsuke Gotō, Bobby Moynihan, Akio Kaneda, Temuera Morrison, Masayo Fujita, Shelby Young, Anri Katsu, Marc Thompson, Junya Enoki, Neil Patrick Harris, Ryoko Shiraishi, Alison Brie, Tokuyoshi Kawashima, Jonathan Lipow, Asami Seto, Karen Fukuhara, Megumi Han, Nichole Sakura, Yuma Uchida, Christopher Sean, Takaya Kamikawa, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Yoshimitsu Shimoyama, Andrew Kishino, Mariya Ise, Stephanie Sheh, Chinatsu Akasaki, Kimiko Glenn, Tetsuo Kanao, Andrew Kishino, Shin-ichiro Miki, Simu Liu, Hiromu Mineta, Masi Oka, Kazuya Nakai, Greg Chun, Akio Ōtsuka, Neil Kaplan, Daisuke Hirakawa, Michael Sinterniklaas, Masako Nozawa, Jaden Waldman, Tsutomu Isobe, Kyle Chandler, Takaya Hashi, David Harbour, Kenichi Ogata, James Hong, Yuichi Nakamura, Jordan Fisher, Seiran Kobayashi, Anna Cathcart, Risa Shimizu, Hiromi Dames, Tadahisa Fujimura, Paul Nakauchi, Taisuke Nakano, Kyle McCarley, Yū Miyazaki, Henry Golding, Lynn, Jamie Chung, Chō, George Takei, Wataru Takagi, Keone Young, Yukari Nozawa, Lorraine Toussaint

 

YOUR REVIEWERS

 

Marco Noyola (Digital Noise, Highly Suspect Reviews, Screener Squad, Audio Editor)

By day, Marco is a mild-mannered office worker, but by night he is a mild-mannered movie watcher. He does other mild-mannered stuff too.

“You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anybody!”

 

 

 

Harmoni Anderson (Screener Squad, Highly Suspect Reviews, Unstabletop Gaming)

Harmoni is a mermaid-haired, millennial, rum drinking, Section 31, Slytherin (who’s divorced J.K. Rowling) preschool/nursery teacher and multi genre geek who also loves all things film, tv, fashion, makeup, and an embarrassingly huge BTS stan. Like really embarrassing. As in, mention them and then sit back and watch the insanity. Harmoni likes being able to game and talk movies/TV with people that aren’t 3 feet tall or all that demanding of her. Plus she can curse at us and not get fired….so bonus!

 

 

Tessa Morrison (Highly Suspect Reviews, Screener Squad, Unstabletop Gamers)

Well-rounded nerd and artist,