Lop & Ochô

A story of redemption, family, honor, and love. It combines all these elements perfectly and capture the heart and essence of the star wars franchise. The only flaw is why can the main character use a lightsaber with no training with the Force?

They managed to do a good story in just 20 minutes. Loved the story plot, the characters, the atmosphere and the visuals. The story has a lot of potential and it deserves more than just an episode.

I don't watch anime. This happens to be the first anime I have ever watched. It has just never appealed to me, but I love Star Wars, so I decided to give it a try.

In this series, the story of an episode is key. It develops the characters in only a few minutes and maintains continuing the story of the episode. This episode did one of the better jobs at it. It had to jump 7 years. We had to meet these characters, know them for 3 minutes, then have to get to know what they were up to for 7 years. It was executed to perfection, it felt like we had known them for multiple episodes. The final battle of this episode was also phenomenal. That and the ending were very emotional. This episode actually ended on an emotional cliff hanger. This was another episode that could have developed into future episodes, but sadly it won't for now.

Like most anthology series, "Visions" is proving itself to a mixed bag. There have been some truly wonderful episodes that I've longed to see more of, some that told their story and left and others, unfortunately like this episode, that I've tired of before its short run time has come to an end.

Having welcomed the Empire to assist with development of their planet, Tao, the natives find their asset stripping methodology controversial and some rebel against their rule. Lop (Anna Cathcart) an escaped slave, meets Yasaburo (Paul Nakauchi) and his daughter Ocho (Hiromi Dames). Ocho instantly warms to Lop and insists that she joins their family. Seven years later, Yasaburo leads the rebellion against the Empirical overlords, which puts him at odds with Ocho, who believes in the Empire's cause. As arguments become war, Lop is left caught in the middle of her adopted family.

Some of these episodes have had impressive artwork or a good story, some have had both, I felt that this episode had neither. Maybe it's something to do with familiarity, this was another episode about a young character, gifted a lightsabre and sent to fight at the behest of an older figure. Another one about a family cleaved in two by the Empire. (Maybe that's all Star Wars ever is...hmm). Either way, this time, I didn't much care for it, nor the open ending that it finished on.

I didn't particularly like the artwork either, it was reminiscent of the Ghibli style, which I'm not a fan of.

The animation is perfect, scenarios, soundtrack, Studio Ghibli level, the story is very beautiful and that's why it became my favorite episode, I would definitely like to see more adventures by Lop and TD.