Lucasfilm Actively Involved in Anime “The Ninth Jedi” From the Creators of “Kaiju No. 8”

The episode of the anthology “Star Wars: Visions” that shares the same title is being developed into its own series.

Polygon, citing Lucasfilm’s vice president of animation development Josh Rimes, reports that Lucasfilm has substantially increased its role in producing the new anime series The Ninth Jedi. The project will be a standalone expansion based on the short film of the same name and its follow-up from the Star Wars: Visions anthology.

Rimes described the series’ creation as a “major undertaking” for the studio. He emphasized that Lucasfilm has worked with Japan’s Production I.G “from the earliest stages of development, design, and production,” since The Ninth Jedi will be the first full-length anime series set in the Star Wars universe.

The original 2021 short was chosen for development because of the breadth of its concept and its storytelling potential. The plot is set a thousand years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker: Jedi are nearly extinct, and master weaponsmith Lah Zhima forges six lightsabers to revive the Order. When Sith abduct him, his daughter Kara embarks on a quest to find her father and rally allies.

Rimes noted that director Kenji Kamiyama’s vision and Production I.G’s creative approach “naturally” scaled up into a larger project, making The Ninth Jedi an obvious choice as the foundation for a standalone series.

The sequel, The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope, released in October as part of the third volume of Visions, continued Kara’s journey and established narrative links that bridge the gap between this series and the episode from the first volume.

The Ninth Jedi is slated to premiere on Disney+ in 2026.

Source: iXBT.games