“Star Wars: Visions,” the new nine-part anime anthology on Disney+, returns the franchise to its Japanese roots even more directly than “The Mandalorian” to expand the universe.
What’s exciting is how the seven anime studios filter the franchise so comfortably through the prism of Japanese culture.
That’s because George Lucas’ original vision for “Star Wars” was an imaginative fusion of Japanese cinema and sci-fi space opera.“‘Star Wars’ has been so influenced by Japanese culture from Kurosawa films [‘The Hidden Fortress’] to jidaigeki [period samurai] films [from which the Jedi name is derived] to Zen Budhism and its impact on the Force,” said executive producer James Waugh of Lucasfilm.
“We’ve been talking about doing [‘Star Wars’ anime] for a long time, but we couldn’t make it happen until the force of nature that’s Disney+.”On “Visions,” Lucasfilm Animation partnered with Kanako Shirasaki and Justin Leach of Qubic Pictures.
They approached the anime studios that they wished to collaborate with, and
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