Star Wars: Visions' Coolest And Weirdest Episode Comes From A Ghibli And One Piece Animator

If you're an anime fan, you've probably seen and been wowed by Shinya Ohira's work even if you don't know his name. He mastered realistic effects animation in the '80s on the likes of "Akira" and "Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack" before developing the sketchy hyper-fluid surrealistic art style he's known for today. He's one of Hayao Miyazaki's top animators, responsible for the boiler room scene in "Spirited Away," Howl's transformation in "Howl's Moving Castle," and, at his most stylistically extreme, the fire-bombings in "The Boy and the Heron."

Ohira tends to work on movies and original video animations (OVAs). When he works on a TV anime at this point in his career, it's always for something special, like the Gear 5 power-up scene in episode 1072 of "One Piece" and multiple action scenes in Netflix's excellent animated version of Naoki Urasawa's "Astro Boy" reboot "Pluto." 

Ohira doesn't direct often, but with 40 years of experience as one of Japan's greatest animators, his scenes are among the highlights of every anime he works on. That includes "BLACK," the final episode of Season 3 of "Star Wars: Visions," which Ohira did direct, and which is the coolest and weirdest 13 minutes of "Visions" so far.

For the most part, "Star Wars: Visions" Volume 3 plays things safe compared to the first two volumes. A third of the episodes are direct sequels to fan favorite Volume 1 episodes, and the new stories don't have as much stylistic variety. It's better-than-average "Star Wars" fare, but nothing particularly special — except for "BLACK."

"BLACK" revisits one of the most iconic scenes in all of "Star Wars" — the destruction of the Death Star — but Shinya Ohira gives it a fresh perspective through the eyes of a Stormtrooper (or is that two Stormtroopers?) experiencing a psychedelic breakdown on the verge of death. A red figure and a green figure with identical faces — who appear to merge in the final shot, seemingly two sides of the same psyche — fight each other, sometimes becoming monstrous figures, as the walls grow eyes, explosions become galaxies, and glimpses of the past flash before their eyes. There's no dialogue, only buoyant jazz and distorted sound effects.

Ohira's "Star Wars" episode isn't his first time lending his artistry to a popular American IP: his work on Shinichiro Watanabe's "The Animatrix" segment "Kid Story," Watanabe's later short film "Blade Runner Blackout 2022," and the animated segment of "Kill Bill Vol. 1" (which has been extended for "The Whole Bloody Affair" release) were many Westerners' introductions to the artier side of anime. If George Lucas ever made good on his promise of returning to experimental filmmaking, it might look something like "BLACK" — except the only person who could make something that literally looks like this is Shinya Ohira.