Star Wars: Visions as an Anime Primer?

Film critic says new Star Wars animation can help introduce “classics of the anime medium….”

There was a bit of a “teaching” quality to Star Wars: Visions.

Using familiar Star Wars tropes to present a lesson, for instance. However, diving a bit deeper, there was more than just themes being dropped during the popular series.

In fact, on NPR’s “Pop Culture Happy Hour” host Glen Weldon explained, “Disney invited seven Japanese anime studios to tell a series of standalone “Star Wars” stories outside of the familiar saga’s established timeline. The result is full of what you’d expect – Jedi, Sith, lightsabers, twins, et cetera. But there’s also a lot you wouldn’t – bunny people, pop music.

“It’s a venerable and very familiar franchise widening its scope, and it certainly looks and feels new.”

But winter and critic Walter Chaw pointed out, “I think as a whole, it’s a pretty good primer for people who are not maybe as familiar with the anime medium as they might be because each of these nine episodes [seems] to be aping a certain kind of style from a well-known property – well-known if you’re an anime fan.”

Of course, both journalists had good and bad to say about the series, with both shading opinions heavily toward the positive.

“It has something literally for everybody,” said Chaw. “It isn’t as exclusive as, you know, ‘Clone Wars‘ might feel. It’s not as exclusive as some of the – right?

“It’s like, you’re dropped in the middle of it,” added the critic. “You don’t even really have to know about lightsabers or anything.”

But you’ll want to know more about Star Wars and Anime after you see Star Wars: Visions.

Listen to the full podcast here. Read the full transcript here.

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