Star Wars: Visions
The Dual
Star Wars x Samurai.
A mysterious stranger and his droid wanders into a village just in time to witness a band of bandits raid it.
The action is cool and the mysterious stranger is intriguing with hints of a cool backstory. Maybe it's a bit too short for the plot to be too important, but if someone at Disney said "hey, make a feature film out of this" I would definitely want to see it.
The art is interesting, mostly black and white with colours used for lights and weapons. The director worked on Ninja Batman and it's quite similar in animation, but the black and white means the CG isn't quite as garish as I remember that being.
9/10
Tatooine Rhapsody
Rebel without feet!
A much more comedic episode where a Hutt defies Jabba to become a rockstar instead of joining the family business. Not much to it really being one of the shortest.
This is the Studio Colorido which you can tell from the style which is quite smooth and polished.
7/10
The Twins
Star Wars x Imaishi.
Twins born from the dark side of the force were made for one purpose, but is that their true destiny?
It's Trigger and Imaishi, nothing more needs to be said about the art and animation. The only thing I would say though is that the male twin looks a bit too much like Lio from Promare.
8/10
The Village Bride
Natural allies.
A Jedi finds herself in a village of people at one with nature, but outside forces threaten their way of life.
The story reflects on the nature of the force as being a mixture of Eastern philosophies with the villagers practices being like those of Buddhism and Shintoism. The bad guys are there to stir the Jedi character into action as she seems to have been suffering from some sort of PTSD, but had found peace in the village.
Again art and animation were very good. Music is by Kevin Penkin.
8/10
The Ninth Jedi
The call of the force.
Someone is trying to rebuild the Jedi order and a group of people strong with the force have been gathered together, but are the invites genuine or is it a trap. Meanwhile on the planet below a girl is visiting her fathers work place which is connected to the person who called the meeting.
The action was pretty good and the twist was interesting, but I don't feel it was as good as some of the others so far.
Made by Production I.G. by the director of GitS: SAC, so again art and animation were very good.
7/10
T0-B1
The droid who wanted to be a Jedi.
The droids master is trying to reinvigorate a dead world and discourages him from his dream, until he relents slightly which leads to the droid accidentally alerting the Imperials to their whereabouts. You see the master was a Jedi (you'd never guess from his clothes!). The master is killed off screen, droid continues on his masters work, Sith comes back, bit of a fight, the end. A bit boring this one.
The style is quite reminiscent of older anime, the character design of the main character is very much like Astro Boy. Found it a bit too old school in the movement, too whimsical.
5/10
The Elder
Time waits for no man.
A Jedi and his Padawan investigate a dark presence felt as they pass a nearby planet.
Again not much to this, a bit of Jedi moralising, a short investigation and some action.
The action was pretty good, this being the second Trigger episode, but it wasn't as stylish as Imaishis. The backgrounds were a bit plain.
7/10
Lop & Ochō
A tale of two sisters.
A planet rich with resources has asked the Imperials to help with making technological advances, but it's little more than a take over. A slave girl escapes the Imperials and is taken in by a family on the planet. 7 years later some of the residents have decided it's time for the Imperials to leave. One such resident is the father of the family, which side will the sisters choose?
Some cool action and thought provoking moments. Another one I'd like to see more of as it ends without the conflict between the sisters solved.
From Studio Geno, the art was really nice with some fine line drawing on the character designs and detailed backgrounds. The animation was good too.
8/10
Akakiri
Temptation.
A Jedi arrives to help an old acquaintance who needs help ridding her planet of a Sith.
The story, written by the same person who did T0-B1, wasn't that compelling again apart from the fairly twisty ending, but it was also cliffhanger-y and didn't really explore it any further. The 2 leads were supposed to be in love according to the blurb on the episode, but it was never really established!
This being the second Science Saru episode had more of a Yuasa feel design wise, although directed by Eun-Yeong Choi. The character designer was the same as Eizouken.
6/10
Overall started strong, but tailed off a little apart from the penultimate episode. I watched the English dub and looking at the credits there were some big names including Lucy Liu, David Harbour, George Takei, Neil Patrick Harris and Allison Brie.
Would definitely like to see more of a few of these stories, but others were too short or not interesting enough to get into.
65/90 = c.7/10
