A Deep Dive Into The Studios Involved In 'Star Wars: Visions' Season 3

Star Wars

Mar 26

In November 2024, fans learned that Star Wars: Visions was returning to their small screens in 2025. With a month to go before Star Wars Celebration, where the series will get its own panel, and perhaps releasing just two weeks later for May 4th, CultureSlate thinks its a good time to rundown the nine studios who are working on Volume 3.

Some are returning faces, but others are entirely new, and it will be interesting to see what they bring to the table with their shorts!

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Kamikaze Douga

Kamikaze Douga is probably the leader of this list for many fans of Star Wars: Visions given their considerable presence in the Visions space. Their short from Volume 1, “The Duel”, featured a strong blend of traditional Japanese storytelling with Star Wars through the story of a character called The Ronin defending a village from bandits who came to pillage it.

The story evidently proved incredibly popular as it spawned a novel, and two one-shot comics, the only Visions short to get this treatment. Some have speculated that their entry for Volume 3 might connect to their Volume 1 short, or some of the expanded material released over the years. As for the studio as a whole, Kamikaze Douga is more generally known for creating excellent anime openings, and holds the position of having the most supervised animated music videos in their industry.

TRIGGER

Alongside Kamikaze Douga, TRIGGER/Trigger Inc./Studio Trigger are another prominent returning studio to Visions given they produced two short films for Volume 1. Vastly different in visuals and tone, “THE TWINS” and “The Elder” also have great differences in their storytelling. In “THE TWINS”, twin children raised by a remnant of the Empire and destined to unleash great destruction on the galaxy are thwarted when the brother of the pair, Karre, turns to the Light Side and steals the power source for their devastating weapon. The sister, Am, pursues her sibling and their intense battle destroys the weapon, though both siblings survive their encounter.

Meanwhile, “The Elder” is a much more somber story, showing two Jedi on patrol in the Outer Rim being drawn to land on a planet, and eventually coming to pursue a mysterious Elder steeped in the Dark Side. Wielding a ship and weapons of the Sith, he nearly kills the Padawan of the pair, only to be defeated by the Jedi Master. TRIGGER has a reputation for creating energetic anime with creative premises, making the slower and meditative pace of “The Elder” a surprising part of their catalogue. Fans might also recognize some of their other recent work like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Delicious in Dungeon.

Kinema citrus Co.

Creators of one of the more lowkey episodes from Visions: Volume 1, Kinema citrus Co. were behind “The Village Bride” which tells the story of a ravaged world and its inhabitants coping with ongoing raids, while a Jedi initially tries to avoid entangling themselves with the situation before saving the day. Kinema, founded in 2008, have seen success through animes like the Made in Abyss series, the Cardfight!! Vanguard series, and My Happy Marriage which has a second season airing in winter 2025.

Production I.G

Production I.G is our final returning studio from Visions: Volume 1, originally creating the short “The Ninth Jedi”. In it, a complex plot plays out as Jedi are called to a remote corner of the galaxy, while a lightsaber smith is attacked and his daughter flees with a precious cargo of newly forged lightsabers to reach these so-called Jedi and present them with their weapons. We instead learn that almost everyone present is a Sith, but before much more can happen, their mysterious host sets about killing them, revealing himself to be on the side of good.

The story ends on a note of hope about the future, despite all of the recent chaos. The company has many notable, popular productions under its belt. In addition to the recent series Kaijuu 8-gou and Haikyuu!!, they helped create Attack on Titan by spawning animation company WIT Studio and producing the show with them in the years since. They are also well known for their involvement with the Ghost in the Shell franchise, and were behind the recent anime Terminator Zero which premiered on Netflix during the summer of 2024.

ANIMA

ANIMA’s short will be created in co-production with Kamikaze Douga, surely a great sign given the latter company’s incredible familiarity with Visions content. ANIMA was founded in 1997 and has focused on providing video game cutscenes and cinematics for franchises like Pokémon and other similar Japanese-originating products. Their most recent project of note however was development and production of Sand Land, a project based on a manga of the same name from the legendary creator of Dragon Ball, Akira Toriyama. Interestingly, Sand Land was also created in cooperation with Kamikaze Douga, showing that the two studios have a strong existing relationship.

david production

Founded in 2007 by staff members who had left the animation company Gonzo, david production undertook its first animation production in 2009 and has been off to the races ever since. The company has a considerable presence in the space of anime aimed at younger audiences, from kids to teenagers, and also an international presence with projects in English.

Their company name, david, serves as both a reference to David versus Goliath, and stands for “Design Audio & Visual Illusion Dynamics.” They are notable for work done with the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure IP from 2014 to 2016, and for creating series like Fire Force and Ensemble Stars!!. Thanks to information revealed at a film festival, we are aware their Visions: Volume 3 short is entitled “Black,” which is described as portraying a mental battle within a Stormtrooper’s head during a hopeless fight.

Polygon Pictures

Polygon Pictures is a fascinating member of this list, as one of the oldest digital animation studios in the world. It was founded in 1983, and has been operating for more than 40 years with a global reach that may surprise some readers. They did work for Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Resistance, and also have other successes and notable productions under their belt like Transformers Prime, the Knights of Sidonia series and the Ajin series. Some of their most recent work also includes shorts for major companies and IP like Disney and Pokémon, alongside a short film contributed to LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS Volume 3 for Netflix entitled “The Very Pulse of the Machine”. So, not only do they have previous experience working within the Star Wars brand, but they are also experienced with short-form content. It is quite a surprise that they were not included in Volume 1 but better late than never!

Project Studio Q

One of the newest companies on this list, Project Studio Q began their life in 2017 with a focus on ED CG modeling for video and television projects. Their executive staff appears incredibly confident in the company, with hopes to substantially contribute to the local animation industry in Japan by developing skills and talent in new creators.

They are an unknown, with no notable projects CultureSlate was aware of while creating this list, making them a wildcard addition to the collection of studios working on Visions Volume 3.

WIT Studio

As was mentioned earlier in this article, WIT Studio was an animation studio split off from Production I.G. During the process, they took several notable team members from I.G with them to form their leadership team. From 2012 onward, they worked on a range of products, and in 2020, formed a stop motion studio.

Among their most notable works, aside from Attack on Titan, have been the series Seraph of the End and the series Spy x Family. Their latest release is the anime Moonrise, which debuts on Netflix in April of this year. It will be interesting to see what their short may look like as despite their recent foundation, they have been creating excellent anime for over a decade.

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