‘Star Wars: Visions Presents The Ninth Jedi’ Release Date and Air Time

Kara’s long journey back to the galaxy far, far away officially concludes this week. ‘Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi’ is set to premiere on Disney+ and Hulu on August 5, 2026, marking the franchise’s first full-length anime series and the inaugural project under the new Visions Presents banner.

This eight-episode limited series continues the narrative first introduced in the beloved Visions shorts. After months of teasers, a trailer release, and an early convention screening, fans finally have a clear idea of what to expect when the show premieres this week.

The series is scheduled to be available in its entirety on Disney+ and Hulu on August 5, with all eight episodes dropping simultaneously instead of following a weekly release pattern. The show will pick up shortly after the events of the fan-favorite ‘Star Wars: Visions’ shorts ‘The Ninth Jedi’ and ‘The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope.’

Prior to its full streaming debut, the series had already premiered at Anime Expo on July 1, 2026, giving convention attendees an exclusive first look at the story before its wider release. This early preview generated significant excitement leading up to the official launch, with fans at Anime Expo enjoying the opening episode in Japanese with English subtitles.

‘Star Wars: Visions Presents’ was first announced during the April 2025 Star Wars Celebration, where James Waugh revealed that the anthology would begin branching out into standalone series to tell longer-form stories that originated as shorts. ‘The Ninth Jedi’ was a natural choice to lead this initiative, given the positive reception of its original short and its 2025 sequel.

Set approximately 1,000 years after the events of ‘The Rise of Skywalker,’ the series follows Lah Kara, the Force-sensitive daughter of the legendary lightsaber smith Lah Zhima. In this distant future, the Jedi Order has nearly vanished, leaving the galaxy vulnerable to formidable dark forces.

According to the official series description, Kara continues her Jedi training under Margrave Juro and embarks on an epic journey of self-discovery. Alongside Juro’s small fellowship of Jedi in training, she sets out to rescue her father and prevent a mysterious Sith leader from unleashing darkness upon the galaxy. Kara and her eclectic Jedi crew also seek out worthy Jedi to combat an increasingly powerful warlord.

The English dub features much of the original voice cast, including Kimiko Glenn as Lah Kara, Andrew Kishino as Juro, Masi Oka as Ethan, Patrick Seitz as Homen, JP Karliak as Gramps, and Simu Liu as Lah Zhima. The Japanese voice cast revealed in July 2026 includes Chinatsu Akasaki, Tetsuo Kanao, Hiromu Mineta, Hinata Tadokoro, Chō, and Shin-ichiro Miki.

Behind the scenes, the series is directed by Shunsuke Tada and written by Mitsuyasu Sakai, with Kenji Kamiyama serving as supervising director. Executive producers include James Waugh, Jacqui Lopez, Josh Rimes, Justin Leach, and Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, while Hitoshi Ito and Kanako Shirasaki are producing, with Caroline Keller as co-producer.

The promotional rollout for ‘The Ninth Jedi’ has heavily relied on trailers to generate excitement. The initial announcement was accompanied by the first trailer, offering audiences a glimpse of the anime’s stunning visuals and action-packed lightsaber battles.

A final trailer was released just days before the launch, serving as a reminder of the show’s imminent arrival on streaming. As Gizmodo’s Cheryl Eddy noted in her preview of the series, while the long-awaited return of Star Wars to the big screen may have been met with indifference, the galaxy far, far away still possesses the ability to innovate, particularly with its more unconventional projects, and ‘The Ninth Jedi’ appears to be a promising addition as the franchise’s first full anime series.

Production I.G, the studio behind the project, brings a legacy that should excite longtime anime fans. Known for ‘Ghost in the Shell,’ this studio collaborates with Lucasfilm to bring Kara’s new chapter to life, making ‘The Ninth Jedi’ a significant expansion of the ‘Visions’ universe rather than just another anthology entry.

‘Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi’ is the inaugural limited series under the new Visions Presents branding, a spinoff of the animated anthology series ‘Star Wars: Visions.’ The series continues the stories from the short films in Volume 1 and Volume 3 of ‘Visions,’ which were written by Kenji Kamiyama and produced by Production I.G.

For fans looking to catch up before diving in, the original short ‘The Ninth Jedi’ is still available where the story began. This animated short premiered on Disney+ on September 22, 2021, produced by Production I.G and written and directed by Kenji Kamiyama. Its sequel, ‘The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope,’ continued the story years later, setting the stage for the extended narrative that the new series now delivers.

With all eight episodes releasing at once, ‘The Ninth Jedi’ allows fans to binge Kara’s next chapter in one sitting, a luxury the anthology format never provided. Whether Lucasfilm will continue to expand the Visions Presents banner with other beloved shorts will likely depend on the reception of this first outing among critics and longtime Star Wars anime enthusiasts.

Now that Kara’s fellowship is finally coming together on screen, are you planning to binge all eight episodes of ‘The Ninth Jedi’ the moment it drops, or will you savor them one at a time?