Star Wars: Visions is heading to Disney Plus

The worlds of anime and Star Wars collide in a new anthology series, Star Wars: Visions, which premieres on Disney Plus later this month.

With legendary Japanese animation studios exploring iconic worlds and characters, Star Wars: Visions promises to be a big release for the Disney streamer.

So read on to see everything we know about the series so far, from who’s involved, when and where to watch it, all the way to rumors and Easter eggs and more.

If you don’t already have Disney Plus, you can sign up by clicking the button below to see Star Wars: Visions at the premiere.

Star Wars: Visions is a series of animated short films, each of which tells its own story in a unique animation style. What they have in common is that they are set in the Star Wars universe. And they’re all Japanese anime.

Some episode descriptions have given some idea of ​​what to expect, including familiar themes and imagery.

Cash: The best Star Wars apps

The twins and master / padawan motifs from the films will be featured in the short films The Twins and The Elder, respectively. The former will feature a brother and sister born into the dark side, with the brother trying to save his sister from her Sith ways. In T0-B1, a droid dreams of being a Jedi. And throughout the battle, characters struggle to uphold their honor and do good in the galaxy in the never-ending battle against the dark side.

You can see from the trailer that some of the shorts are heavily related to westerns as well as Akira Kurosawa’s films like Yojimbo and The Hidden Fortress.

George Lucas is famously inspired by Westerns and The Hidden Fortress when working on the original Star Wars, and was inspired by much Japanese history while developing the well-known Star Wars iconography. So this is really a heavenly game.

When and where can I watch Star Wars: Visions?

Star Wars: Visions will be streamed exclusively on Disney Plus starting September 22nd.

In addition, a fourth Star Wars series, The Book of Bobba Fett, is due to appear on Disney Plus in December 2021.

Which animation studios are involved?

In contrast to Disney’s previous animated anthology series What If…? Star Wars: Visions won’t have a single visual style across multiple episodes.

Instead, Disney and Lucasfilm hired Japanese animation studios to create their own Star Wars stories in their signature style. That means the stories were written in each studio in-house and the animation was designed accordingly.

The seven studios and the short films they produce are as follows:

• Kamikaze Douga: The duel
• Geno Studio (Twin Engine): Lop & Och
• Studio Colorido (Twin Engine): Tatooine Rhapsody
• Trigger: The Twins and the Elder
• Kinema Citrus: The village bride
• Science Saru: Akakiri and T0-B1
• Production IG: The Ninth Jedi

Who speaks the Star Wars: Visions characters?

Star Wars: Visions has an impressive cast of voice actors in both the Japanese and English versions.

Japanese

In the Japanese version, the following voice actors will be shown, sorted by short film:

• The duel: Masaki Terasoma (Ronin), Akeno Watanabe (bandit leader) and Yūko Sanpei (village chief)
• Tatooine Rhapsody: Hiroyuki Yoshino (Jay), Kōsuke Gotō (Geezer), Akio Kaneda (Boba Fett), Masayo Fujita (K-344) and Anri Katsu (Lan)
• The twins: Junya Enoki (Cart), Ryoko Shiraishi (Am) and TokuyoshiKawashima (B-20N)
• The village bride: Asami Seto (F), Megumi Han (Haru), Yūma Uchida (Asu), Takaya Kamikawa (Vaan), Yoshimitsu Shimoyama (Izuma) and Mariya Ise (Saku)
• The ninth Jedi: Chinatsu Akasaki (Kara), Tetsuo Kanao (Juro), Shin-ichiro Miki (Zhima), Hiromu Mineta (Ethan), Kazuya Nakai (Roden), Akio Ōtsuka (narrator) and Daisuke Hirakawa (Hen Jin)
• T0-B1: Masako Nozawa (T0-B1) and Tsutomu Isobe (Mitaka)
• The Elder: Takaya Hashi (Tajin), Kenichi Ogata (The Elder) and Yuichi Nakamura (Dan)
• Lop & Ochō: Seiran Kobayashi (Lop), Risa Shimizu (Ocho), Tadahisa Fujimura (Yasaburo) and Taisuke Nakano (Imperial Officer)
• Akakiri: Yū Miyazaki (Tsubaki), Lynn (Misa), Chō (Senshuu), Wataru Takagi (Kamahachi) and Yukari Nozawa (Masago)

English

In the English version, the following voice actors are organized by short film (watch the English trailer here):

• The duel: Brian Tee (Ronin), Lucy Liu (bandit leader) and Jaden Waldman (village chief)
• Tatooine Rhapsody: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Jay), Bobby Moynihan (Geezer), Temuera Morrison (Boba Fett), Shelby Young (K-344) and Marc Thompson (Lan)
• The twins: Neil Patrick Harris (Karre), Alison Brie (Am) and Jonathan Lipow (B-20N)
• The village bride: Karen Fukuhara (F), Nichole Sakura (Haru), Christopher Sean (Asu), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Valco), Andrew Kishino (Izuma) and Stephanie Sheh (Saku)
• The ninth Jedi: Kimiko Glenn (Kara), Andrew Kishino (Juro), Simu Liu (Zhima), Masi Oka (Ethan), Greg Chun (Roden), Neil Kaplan (narrator) and Michael Sinterniklaas (Hen Jin)
• T0-B1: Jaden Waldman (T0-B1) and Kyle Chandler (Mitaka)
• The Elder: David Harbor (Tajin), Jordan Fisher (Dan) and James Hong (The Elder)
• Lop & Ochō: Anna Cathcart (Lop), Hiromi Dames (Ocho), Paul Nakauchi (Yasaburo) and Kyle McCarley (Imperial Officer)
• Akakiri: Henry Golding (Tsubaki), Jamie Chung (Misa), George Takei (Senshuu), Keone Young (Kamahachi) and Lorraine Toussaint (Masago)

Where does it fit in the Star Wars canon?

The “Expanded Universe” of Star Wars is huge. It includes the original film trilogy, the prequel and sequel trilogies, novels and comics, and video games.

And the canon got even more complicated when Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012. In 2014, the company formed a “Story Group” to oversee the development of Star Wars films and other properties, and to maintain a degree of consistency between titles. This meant that many parts of the Expanded Universe were removed from the broader continuity and renamed “Star Wars Legends”.

The official Disney-approved canon now consists of the nine main feature films, some of the Clone Wars films and series, and books and games that were primarily produced after the Disney acquisition.

So where does Star Wars: Visions fit in?

According to executive producer James Waugh, the studios involved didn’t have to operate within established Star Wars timelines or chronologies. “We really wanted to give these creators a lot of creative leeway to explore the full imaginative potential of the Star Wars galaxy through the unique lens of anime,” he said at Anime Expo 2021.

But does that mean these shorts aren’t canon? Maybe. Disney hasn’t cleared it up, and that’s probably intentional. We can very well see elements of these stories appearing elsewhere in the expanded Star Wars universe. Or maybe we won’t. The good news is that the main goal here was, above all, to tell great stories.

What to Expect from Star Wars: Visions

Aside from a few brief synopses, Disney didn’t reveal too much about individual episodes.

But the trailer gives us a glimpse of iconic Star Wars content. Here is a short list of the most outstanding, along with little bits of information from testimonies and interviews:

• It looks like a Jedi or Force Sensitive character is going to stop a blaster bolt in midair like Kylo Ren did in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This was a dramatic use of the Force that expanded the blaster distraction from previous Star Wars films. That can signal a general commitment to the newer films.
• Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt will perform in one of the shorts. Fett and his famous ship Slave I can be seen briefly in the trailer.
• We see what the podracing stadium looks like on the planet Tatooine from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. This is likely the location of the rock concert or rock opera that will be featured in Tatooine Rhapsody.

But apart from familiar Star Wars characters and attitudes, the series trailer shows us what looks like completely new characters and storylines. But even with very different animation styles from the different studios, these stories all look like they fit into the Star Wars myth.

We know that so far about Star Wars: Visions.

You can try it out at Disney Plus in September.