The force remains strong with Star Wars animation in The Ninth Jedi

Thankfully, Andor isn’t the only exception to the rule. The anime anthology Star Wars: Visions has been a consistent highlight of the franchise’s current era; it’s now spun off the equally refreshing The Ninth Jedi. No other Star Wars project in recent memory has been this free to explore and unburdened by all that has come before. There are no Skywalkers or familiar faces brought in to give us a hit of cheap nostalgia. Instead, there are compelling, relatively new ones like Lah Kara and her master Margrave Juro, who are trying to find their way in a fictional universe once more falling into darkness. They, along with Production I.G.’s enrapturing animation, ensure that The Ninth Jedi feels fresh and alive, even as it deals with familiar details like the galactic threat of a terrifying new weapon. It’s all visually stunning; just when the saga was starting to feel painfully small, these eight episodes prove there’s still vast beauty to be found in animated Star Wars. 

The grandeur—helmed by veteran director Shunsuke Tada—is felt right out of the gate in a simple yet stunning opening episode involving an escape through a black hole. Continuing a story that began in the first two seasons of Visions, The Ninth Jedi plunges into its ongoing adventure while cutting deeper into character. Specifically, Lah Kara (impeccably voiced in the original Japanese by Chinatsu Akasaki and in the English dub by Kimiko Glenn) is a dynamic, layered lead for building a series around. She’s not only one of the most powerful figures Star Wars has ever seen, but she’s also conflicted, struggling to hold to her principles. Kara is trying to do right in spite of her predecessors’ many failures, but she’s not immune to falling prey to her own anger. Thus, while there’s excitement in the way she cuts through her enemies, there’s also a mounting sense of dread over how truly unhinged she can become. 

Accompanying Kara on her quest to find her father and her destiny is engaging on a purely kinetic action level and genuinely emotional one. There is some playfulness on display, but The Ninth Jedi is a rich text about legacy and violence. While Star Wars has always been about the dark and the light, rarely has it felt as resonant as it does here. Even as the story gets a bit caught up in setup—like in the rather exposition-heavy second episode—from a great, “I’m Spartacus”-esque moment on, it’s a joyous, full-speed-ahead ride. We get to experience astounding moments where Kara takes down a huge ship all by herself, and we sit with the devastation in the beautiful rubble. 

Even the most deceptively simple frames of The Ninth Jedi have a distinct spark. It’s not just that each character is uniquely designed and lovingly animated—though that is refreshing. No, it’s that the series makes full use of its form. One minute, it’s finding exciting thrills in characters leaping through the air in battle; the next it’s evoking a subtle terror with the striking colors of its violence. It’s a stirring reversal of Disney’s profit-driven impulse to drain the life from the studio’s animated classics by converting them into live-action eyesores—sometimes, what’s lost its luster in live-action can be restored by animation. The Ninth Jedi rips from start to finish, providing a breath of fresh air for Star Wars devotees often desperately gasping for it.