Anime Expo Press Day: "Star Wars: Visions Presents - The Ninth Jedi"
Premiering on Disney+ and Hulu this August 5th, 2026, is the latest series under the new Star Wars: Visions Presents banner: Star Wars: Visions Presents - The Ninth Jedi.
Star Wars: Visions Presents aims to present expanded Star Wars: Visions stories as limited anime series. The Ninth Jedi has eight episodes that begin soon after the original Star Wars: Visions short “The Ninth Jedi” and the following “The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope.”
Synopsis: “Lah Kara continues to train in the ways of the Jedi under Margrave Juro. Kara goes on an epic journey of self-discovery as she and Juro’s small fellowship of Jedi-in-training embark on a quest to save her father.”
In conjunction with his appearance at this month’s Anime Expo 2026, supervising director Kenji Kamiyama (and his interpreter Yuki Machida) was gracious enough to spend a few minutes speaking with LaughingPlace.com about the new series and his longstanding relationship with the Star Wars saga.
On getting started with Star Wars: “The starting point was back in 2019 when Disney started the Star Wars Visions Anthology series. They offered Japanese anime studios the chance to create their own interpretation of Star Wars with creative freedom as long as it took place in a Star Wars universe, and Production I.G was one of those studios. When I heard about this, no director had been attached, and I was like, ‘oh, nobody's raising their hands! That’s so lucky–okay, I'll raise my hand, I want to do it!’ And that's how I got involved.
“But…of course I've seen the films before making the original show in 2019. I've seen all the Star Wars films. Before that, like late 1970 when Episode IV came out…that was probably the first film that I watched at age 12 by myself in the theater. Since then, I've been a huge Star Wars fan, so that's how it played out.”
On developing the story: “There are two inspirations to create Kara’s story. The first one is episode four–like, my Star Wars is episode four. When I saw Luke Skywalker's journey, it was such a coming of age story–a young boy starts on a journey…That's why I wanted to create a protagonist that also does that journey, which is Kara. That's one inspiration.
“The second one was actually my misunderstanding at the beginning when I first saw Star Wars. At the beginning, I thought a lightsaber’s color was based on the Force, and also that only Jedi could handle lightsabers. But then in episode five, I saw Han Solo using it as a weapon and so I discovered my misunderstanding. And when I created this series in The Ninth Jedi's world, I thought maybe it would be interesting for me to use this idea–to make a lightsaber that changed colors based on somebody's connection to the Force and emotion and heart. I thought this would be a unique idea, and Lucasfilm agreed with that.”
On reconciling the differences between Western and Eastern storytelling: “It was a kind of a long process, because I think fundamentally there's a little bit of difference between Japanese or maybe Eastern storytelling and Western storytelling. I feel like in the Western world, black and white, dark and light are a little more simpler than how we think. I think Mr. George Lucas also got inspired by Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s film, [Hidden Fortress] and in that film, the villain is kind of a protagonist and is not completely on the dark side. I feel like Jedi can also have both dark and light sides.
“And also, when I shared this idea, Lucasfilm loved the unique idea of lightsabers changing colors, but we had a lot of discussion with them in terms of the timing of the color change. Sometimes, the Lucasfilm team said, ‘so now if they are doing this, the color should be red.’ But the Japanese team said, ‘no, no, no, it's still blue because…’ So, we had a lot of long discussions about the timing. And this is also the core of this idea of lightsabers, because we feel sometimes when you're using some kind of dark power for a good thing or to help others, that can be portrayed as a light side.
“So it's not like simple black and white, and from those differences we talked and discussed, and through those processes everyone came to an agreement on the unique idea of lightsabers in The Ninth Jedi.”
During Anime Expo, attendees got to hear more about The Ninth Jedi from Supervising Director Kenji Kamiyama, Director Shunsuke Tada, Producer Hitoshi Ito, and Lucasfilm Executive Producers Jacqui Lopez and Josh Rimes during their panel “First Look | Star Wars: Visions Presents - The Ninth Jedi” and screened the first episode!
Prior to the screening, Lopez and Rimes spoke on the close affinity George Lucas has always had with anime and Japanese filmmaking, from the influences of Kurosawa and samurai dramas, and how the title of the anthology series came from the art book Lucas created with 100 different artists interpreting Star Wars called Star Wars Art: Visions.
Lopez: “I just wanted to say, you know, Kara's story, her courage, her commitment, and her Jedi quest, was something that we really wanted to bring back, especially in today's world. We kind of need all of that.”
After the screening, Kamiyama was joined by Tada and Ito who talked about how satisfying their collaboration with Lucasfilm was, and how much they enjoyed the challenging process of bringing Kara’s journey to life.
On favorite characters:
Tada: “My favorite character is R2D2. Of course, it's cute and it's charming, but from Episode Four to Three, he's been very loyal to his masters–different masters, different generations, and he's seen ups and downs…I can't love him more, and it resonates with me so much.”
Ito: “My favorite character is Obi-Wan Kenobi. He's the one who's been seeing all the major events with Anakin and Darth Vader and Luke and I feel like he's the symbol of the Star Wars saga. Also, I love his own saga, the Obi-Wan saga, so that was my favorite character.”
Kamiyama: “My first encounter was Episode Four and back in the late 70s I was 12 years old and I remember I was completely captivated in the theater. I remember many, many times I went to the theater to watch it over and over again, and my favorite character from the Star Wars universe is Luke Skywalker because of that first experience.
“He is, as you know, an annoying boy in the countryside and farm trying to go on adventure, and somehow at that time, I felt Luke's story was my story.”
Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi is directed by Shunsuke Tada and written by
Mitsuyasu Sakai. Kenji Kamiyama serves as supervising director.
Returning Original Language Voice Talent: Chinatsu Akasaki, Tetsuo Kanao, Hiromu Mineta, Hinata Tadokoro, Cho, Shinichiro Miki, and Akio Otsuka. English Dub Voice Talent: Kimiko Glenn, Andrew Kishino, Masi Oka, Patrick Seitz, JP Karliak, Simu Liu, Neil Kaplan, Feodor Chin, Young Mazino, Chase Sui Wonders, and Keone Yo.
All eight episodes will premiere on August 5, 2026, exclusively on Disney+ and Hulu.