This is an entry I’ve not seen on many other people’s lists for some reason. I mean, I could see why some wouldn’t regard it as an anime. But, it’s made by Japanese animation studios, even if it was paid for by America. Plus, having listened to a Podcast this year where I learned people in Japan describe The Minions as “anime”, I’ve stopped stressing about the finer details about what is and isn’t anime at this point.
You might notice that I’m doing this one a bit later this year. Well, part of the reason for that is the damn way anime season run. The past couple of years I wrote one of these lists, I ended up feeling weird about putting shows on from the Autumn season when they were only half over.
So this time, I decided to at least wait for that last Autumn season to be finally over so I had a better sense of my feelings on those shows. That, plus I ended up really packing my schedule full at the back end of the year and decided to watch a lot of shows right at the end.
That’s no moon, that’s… my number seven entry:
#7: Star Wars: Visions
Originally aired on 22nd September | 9 Episodes | Anthology series based on the Star Wars franchise | Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Samurai, Action
It felt kind of tricky finding a good spot for this one. Being an anthology series of totally different stories told by totally different animation studios, the quality of the series overall is wildly less consistent than it would be for a single series told by a single studio.
That being said, I don’t think there were any outright bad episodes of Star Wars Visions. The swing between my least favourite episodes and the ones I liked the most lands very heavily on the side of enjoyment, as my favourite two or three episodes of this series were absolutely astounding.
It was so fun coming to this series week to week as I reviewed it for my blog and seeing which studios or creators were behind each of the episodes, as I tried to keep it a surprise to myself each each one. In that regard, I feel like a lot of the reason I ended up enjoying the series was because of the way I watched it.
This series dropped all in one go, so the temptation to binge it all in one go was pretty strong. But honestly, with a show of this nature, I feel watching it all in one go is kind of a disservice to it. When you’ve got an ongoing story, watching them back to back helps keep the events and the drama fresh in your head.
With Visions, they’re all so different that I feel like a break between them is kind of required to go into each new one with a fresh pallet and nothing lingering from the previous one.
This was a series packed to the brim with style, love and reverence for the source material. Not only that though, it was interesting to see fresh and totally unique takes on the lore that is usually so strict about sticking within the timeline of established lore.
I’d love to see a new set of studios get the opportunity to make a whole new series of these episodes. I’d also love to see Trigger get the green light to get an entire series based on the world and style of “The Elder”, which I loved the most out of all of the episodes.
I’m pretty sure this isn’t a one and done experiment for anime and Star Wars.
A Richard Wood Text Adventure 