Star Wars Celebration: ‘Star Wars: Visions' Reveals Season 3 Release Date, ‘The Ninth Jedi' Standalone Series
He was just supposed to be passing by, but Ronin, the former Sith Lord character who appeared in the first season of the animated anthology Star Wars: Visions, will be returning in the third season of the Lucasfilm series which debuts on Disney+ on Oct. 29 this year.
The big reveal came at the Star Wars Celebration event in Tokyo, in a panel dedicated to the hit show, where Visions executive producer James Waugh confirmed that three of the most popular storylines from the first season of the show — 'The Duel,' 'The Village Bride' and 'The Ninth Jedi' — will be continuing in the upcoming third volume of episodes.
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Waugh also revealed a 'bold new direction' for Visions with the introduction of the Star Wars: Visions Presents banner, which he said would be giving filmmakers a chance to tell deeper and more longform stories without the constraints of the shorter runtime of the typical Visions episodes. First up will be a spinoff standalone series of 'The Ninth Jedi' which will come out sometime in 2026.
'The Duel: Payback' will be directed by Takanobu Mizuno from anime studio Kamikaze Douga. 'The Lost Ones,' a followup to the 'The Village Bride,' will be helmed by Hitoshi Haga of Kinema Citrus. And Naoyoshi Shiotani of Production IG will direct 'The Ninth Jedi' followup 'Child of Hope.' The trio of filmmakers talked about their episodes and showed designs for new characters, much to the delight of the crowd (a four-legged AT-AT, with a Japanese building on top, elicited oohs and aahs).
The Ronin character from 'The Duel' has proven to be quite popular with Star Wars fans around the world, inspiring statues, and even a Hasbro Black Series figure.
Also at the panel, Masaki Tachibana of anime studio Kinema Citrus previewed an especially kawaii addition to the Star Wars universe for his installment, 'Yuko's Treasure.' The episode's young female protagonist will be accompanied by a large, bear-like droid with a microwave built into his belly. The reveal of the character in a short clip played in the convention hall drew delighted applause.
Hiroyasu Kobayashi of Project Studio Q discussed the darker and more mechanical world of his installment 'The Song of Four Wings,' which took the four blades of an X-Wing as its central motif.'We're a studio that specializes in the creation of mechanisms, so we really focussed on the essence of the old Joe Johnston designs and featured a lot of droids and mechs,' he explained while showing a still that featured an anime riff on an AT-AT walker.
'In general, Visions is a concept that really came from a passion for the animated medium,' said Waugh about the original inspirations behind the anthology and its focus on Japanese anime for its first and third volumes. 'I think we've always deeply admired the craftsmen that bring such great storytelling through animation. And so, as we were talking about how we could celebrate that, we ended up coming up with a concept really focused on anime and really focused on celebrating Star Wars through the anime perspective through the idea of really giving Japanese culture a spotlight within Star Wars and its influence on Star Wars in general.'
When it debuted in 2021, Visions was a bold creative choice by Lucasfilm as it was a collection of non-canon animated shorts created by different Japanese animation studios and featuring different animation styles. The lack of restrictions led to wildly imaginative interpretations of the Star Wars mythos that proved incredibly popular with fans and critics alike.
The first volume of Visions debuted on Disney+ in September 2021. The season included 9 episodes with work from Japanese animation studios Kamikaze Douga, Studio Colorido, Geno Studio, Trigger, Kinema Citrus, Production I.G. and Science Saru. Volume one was met with near universal acclaim from critics, and it enjoys a 98 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and 81 percent on Metacritic.
Volume two of Visions was released on Disney+ in May 2023, with episodes featuring work from a more international group of international studios, including Aardman (U.K.), El Guiri (Spain), Cartoon Saloon (Ireland), Punkrobot (Chile), Studio Mir (South Korea), Studio La Cachette (France), 88 Pictures (India), D'art Shtajio (Japan) along with Lucasfilm (U.S.), and Triggerfish (South Africa/Ireland). Volume two was likewise a huge hit with critics, with it scoring a perfect 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and 88 percent on Metacritic.
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