For a series that regularly takes us to a galaxy
far, far away, it’s crazy that Star Wars has never journeyed
to the much closer, equally mysterious land of Japan. Enter Star Wars:
Visions, a new anthology series made up of shorts created by some of the
most renowned anime studios in the Eastern Hemisphere (or so the official blurb
tells me, anyway… I’m not a huge consumer of the genre so I wouldn’t know).
Since Jedi are pretty much just space samurai with laser swords instead of
katana and mystical powers instead of… well, non-mystical powers, the crossover
was bound to go down as smoothly as a Mandalorian bounty hunter down the throat
of a sarlacc. And it does, for the most part, although like all anthology
works Visions definitely has some stinkers in the mix as well.
The animation across the nine episodes varies from fairly
realistic (well, as realistic as anime ever gets, anyway) to almost painfully
colorful and goofy, each style adequately matching the story that is being
told. All the tropes of anime are there, from questionable physics (not
that Star Wars was good with this to begin with) to wacky,
impractical, and awesome weapons like the thing in the first episode that can
only be described as a spinning lightsaber umbrella. The stories range from
pretty cool to painfully bland, and some of them take much more advantage of
the vast amount of storytelling potential the universe has to offer than others
(the episode about the rock band in particular could have been set pretty much
anywhere if you changed a word or two in the script). And while some episodes
seemed to be geared more towards older fans like me, some were clearly written
with children in mind, although none of them are adult adult,
by any means. Star Wars: Visions is a series you can and
should watch with your kids if they are burgeoning Sci-Fi/Fantasy geeks (and if
they’re not, well, you’re raising them wrong).
One conversation that has always existed amongst western anime
watchers is whether you should watch a series in the original Japanese with
English subtitles or if you should watch it dubbed over with English voice
actors. I opted for the latter, as it was the default, and I was too lazy to
press a button or two to change it to the former. The English cast is stellar
and includes some big names such as Neil Patrick Harris, Alison Brie, George
Takei, Lucy Liu, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Simu Liu, and they all sound like
they are having a blast, even if their dialogue is occasionally awkward to
western sensibilities, as was the case with Harris and Brie (apparently over
explaining is a thing that happens in some anime, however, so I will allow
it). Star Wars: Visions was clearly created with a lot of love
and it shows.
With only nine episodes that vary from fifteen-ish minutes to
thirty, Visions is a quick, easy watch. And if you don’t like
an episode, just skip ahead to the next one. What do you have to lose?
Star Wars: Visions (season 1, perhaps?) is now available in
it’s entirety on Disney+.
This review was first published in The Keizertimes on October 8th, 2021. Visit at http://keizertimes.com/
Hindsight: looks like I started two articles in a row with the phrase "for a _________." Whoops.
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