Star Wars has flirted with anime for years. This week it finally commits to a full relationship.
What dropped
Star Wars: Visions Presents - The Ninth Jedi premieres all eight episodes August 5 on Disney+ and Hulu. It's the first full-length anime series set in the galaxy far, far away, animated by Production I.G under a new 'Star Wars: Visions Presents' banner built for longer-form storytelling. Shunsuke Tada directs, Mitsuyasu Sakai writes, and Ghost in the Shell veteran Kenji Kamiyama serves as supervising director.
The series continues the fan-favorite Visions shorts 'The Ninth Jedi' and 'Child of Hope,' following Lah Kara as she trains under Margrave Juro and hunts for her missing father. The English dub reunites Kimiko Glenn as Kara and Andrew Kishino as Juro, with Simu Liu, Masi Oka and Young Mazino joining the cast.

Why it matters
Visions has always been an anthology, a sampler of studios reinterpreting Star Wars. A full serialized anime is a different bet entirely: it treats anime not as a guest format but as a native storytelling home for one of the biggest IPs on earth. Handing that to Production I.G, a studio synonymous with Ghost in the Shell, signals Lucasfilm wants craft credibility, not just aesthetic novelty.
The read
This is the crossover point where two fandoms that have long orbited each other finally merge on the same release calendar. A galaxy-wide franchise dropping a same-day English simuldub anime is exactly the kind of blur between 'Western IP' and 'anime medium' that defines 2026 viewing.
The move
Eight episodes, all at once, means this is a weekend binge, not a weekly ritual. Watch subbed and dubbed back to back; the dual voice casts are stacked enough to reward it.
Sources
- Star Wars: Visions Presents - The Ninth Jedi Trailer Debut — StarWars.com, Aug 3, 2026
- Star Wars Officially Returns With Its New 8-Episode Jedi Series on August 5 — CBR, 2026
- THE NINTH JEDI Anime Is Coming to Disney+ in August — Nerdist, 2026
