For five years, Star Wars: Visions has been home to some of the franchise’s boldest ideas, but few episodes have lingered in fans’ minds quite like volume 1 episode 5, “The Ninth Jedi.” Kenji Kamiyama’s sweeping tale of a galaxy where lightsabers have become legend stood taller even than some of Lucasfilm’s own projects. Now, The Ninth Jedi is back as an eight-episode series, premiering Aug. 5 on Hulu and Disney Plus. Fans got a sense of what to expect at Anime Expo, where Lucasfilm unveiled the first trailer for Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi.
Beautifully animated by Production I.G. (Ghost in the Shell, Psycho-Pass), the limited anime continues Kara’s story following both the original volume 1 episode and its volume 3 follow-up, “Child of Hope,” marking it as the very first Visions story to blossom into a full television series.
The Ninth Jedi looks to add weight to the story through menacing new villains, nail-biting lightsaber bouts, and massive set-pieces, like massive black hole that looks straight out of Interstellar. Kamiyama returns as supervising director, with Shunsuke Tada taking up the role of lead director. Their work on acclaimed anime projects, like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, should give Star Wars fans a breath of fresh air, with a series full of interesting perspectives on that beloved galaxy far, far away. To say they’re fans of the Lucasfilm franchise would be an understatement.
While Visions has always thrived as an anthology, The Ninth Jedi always felt different. Kamiyama didn’t simply tell a self-contained adventure, but built an entire era of Star Wars that begged for exploration. Set long after the Skywalker Saga, the story imagines a galaxy where Jedi have faded into myth, lightsabers are almost impossible to find, and Kara’s father — a legendary saber-smith — may represent the last hope for restoring balance.
The new trailer suggests Kamiyama and Tada’s ambition hasn’t changed. Expanding beyond the intimate scope of the original shorts, the series looks poised to further explore this distant future while leaning into the striking blend of samurai cinema, high-concept science fiction, and kinetic action that made “The Ninth Jedi” one of Visions’ defining chapters. At the forefront of Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi is the nature of what it means to be a Jedi or Sith, seeking to dive even further into the mystical unknowns of the force.
It’s also a milestone for Lucasfilm’s anime ambitions. Rather than treating Visions as a one-off experiment, The Ninth Jedi represents the first time the studio has allowed one of its alternate-universe stories to evolve into something larger. If successful, it could open the door for other fan-favorite shorts to receive the same treatment. Judged by its initial trailer alone, there’s a lot to get excited about.
More than simply continuing Kara’s journey, The Ninth Jedi proves that Star Wars: Visions is no longer just a showcase for standalone ideas. Some stories are simply too good to end after 20 minutes.
The Ninth Jedi premieres Aug. 5 on Hulu and Disney Plus