Movies

Classic 'Star Wars' Is Getting The Manga Treatment With 'The Legends Of Luke Skywalker'

star wars manga
By Hoai-Tran Bui

Star Wars has the power of the Force and anime on its side. The sci-fi franchise has conquered every medium — movies, TV, video games, comic books — so why not add the lucrative globe-spanning medium of manga to that? Manga publishing juggernaut VIZ Media, which has brought popular manga like Naruto, Bleach, and Inuyasha to the States, is releasing Star Wars: The Legends of Luke Skywalker: The Manga in collaboration with Lucasfilm. Ready to see Luke turned into a dashing, wide-eyed anime hero? Well, you're gonna.

"Luke Skywalker? I thought he was a myth."

The myth of Luke Skywalker and his adventures between the events of Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens gets told in The Legends of Luke Skywalker: The Manga. Written by a group of renowned Japanese manga artists, Akira Himekawa, Haruichi, Subaru, Akira Fukaya, and Takashi Kisaki, The Legends of Luke Skywalker is a series of stories about the mythic Jedi Master inspired by Ken Liu's Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

In the manga, which tells tales of Luke's adventures through the perspectives of those who run into him, "Encounters with the elusive Jedi Luke Skywalker have mystified many in a galaxy far, far away." The first few pages of the manga, which were previewed by the official Star Wars Twitter account below, follow a young biology student who gets swept off her feet by a bearded Luke, looking way cooler than he ever did in the movies. (Sorry Mark Hamill!)

This isn't the first time Star Wars has gotten the manga treatment. Four Star Wars films were adapted to manga by Dark Horse Comics between 1998 and 1999: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. But The Legends of Luke Skywalker is the first time we're seeing wholly original content rendered in that unique manga style.

It's kind of fitting that Star Wars would come full circle like this — after all, the series takes major inspiration from Japanese culture and samurai movies. But the question is, when are we getting a Star Wars anime series? I'm ready to declare anime Luke Skywalker the Best Boy.

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