For 40 years, Star Wars fans have been entranced with groundbreaking stories that have opened a new door for the film industry. On this wild ride, fans have also been accustomed to strange, new twists of storytelling. This has been the case especially with the releases of “The Mandalorian” (innovating a new western feel), “The Bad Batch”, and most recently and possibly the oddest twist, is “Star Wars Visions.” Star Wars Visions, released in late September on Disney Plus, is a collection of nine different short stories during different eras of the Star Wars timeline. These short, 15 to 20 minute stories were created by six of the most respected Japanese Anime studios, who have shared their perception of “Star Wars,” in the process implementing many elements of their Japanese culture.

           Each episode of the series focuses on a different theme or tone. Whether it be family, temptation, adventure, curiosity, or intensity, they all create a different feel that Star Wars fans have really never experienced before. The way they include vastly different music, animation, and environmental sounds have also created a different mood from other Star Wars projects. These factors that the artists have added have made this collection very thrilling and unique.

           My personal favorite episodes out of the series are “The Ninth Jedi” (episode five), “The Elder” (episode seven), and “Lop and Ochó” (episode eight). The Elder tells of a master and an apprentice pursuing a dark presence on an Outer Rim planet. This episode, along with all the others, include many great fight scenes with Jedi, Sith, bounty hunters, or civilians, which is a major factor of my enjoyment of the show. The eighth episode, Lop and Ochó, tells of a broken family that was once united which adds so much more emotion into the series. The sadness of the father over the broken family, the anger of Ocho at her sister and father, and Lop’s feudal attempts at unification are only a few examples in this episode. However, some of the episodes were very dull and just never made me want to connect with the characters and story. Some seemed very pointless and made me wish the episode would be over quicker so that I could get to the next. For example, the second episode, “Tatooine Rhapsody”, was not very compelling. The weak conflict of one of the band members getting captured by Jabba the Hutt and the resolution at the end made it a pretty boring and useless story for me.

Nonetheless, the series was still very enjoyable and an overall different experience. I was not expecting to be blown away by Visions, and I was not overall. But, I was not disappointed either, due to the few hidden gems in the series. Overall, I thought the series was a creative and unique way to portray the galaxy we all love.