So, nobody will point out that the voice of TO-B1 is actually the voice of Goku in japanese?
as*Tr0-Bo1*
Another episode with massive biases attached to it, T0-B1 comes courtesy of the excellent people at Science Saru, whose Keep Your Hands of Eizouken! from last year helped keep me sane during the start of the pandemic and became a favourite in the process. And while this short is much more child friendly then the rest of them, there is so much to love about everything else surrounding it. For starters, this thing is downright beautiful with some really amazing artwork and animation. The storybook style panelling and the transitions here are pure magic, and the way it seamlessly blends in and out of our leads' imagination is fantastic.
Story wise, this is pretty much a riff on Astro Boy but in Star Wars, which sounds like a risky, even impossible idea, but they make it work in clever ways here. I especially love the fact that the legendary Masako Nozawa is the voice of T0-B1 here, as this feels like the start of a shonen series with his declaration "I'm going to be the best Jedi!" the most obvious sign of this. I personally loved this one.
I find the sound effects in this episode to be extremely grating, but I also think the color palette might be the best I've ever seen in animation.
Astro Boy but Astro Boy wants to be a Jedi and is also played by Nozawa Masako. Genious.
I was hesitant about this one when I first saw a picture of T0-B1 (because his design doesn't match the style of typical Star Wars droids), but this one might be one of my favourites! The Pinocchio/Astro Boy type premise makes it easy to connect to both the story and the characters, and it really nails a large premise on a small scale.
Astro Boy in a galaxy far far away.
A very cute and heartfelt sendup of Astro Boy, the animation is gorgeous and it is completely unafraid to tell its own story. A droid jedi!!! Hell yeah! Screw the lore! The droids have always been second class citizens, and Solo made a big joke out of it. So seeing this step, even if it's not 'canon', is just plain cool.
A nice episode with a different art style but not exactly my jam
this one has mega man feels all over it!
Just like The Duel, this is the most effective use of anime and Star Wars. Actually feels like Star Wars.
Animation style was a hit for me. Great music. Solid story.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2021-09-23T17:11:44Z
[7.0/10] This is the first Star Wars: Visions episode that didn’t do much for me. It’s largely fine. Totally watchable, especially as a short, with some neat flourishes. But it lacks the more transcendent or enjoyable elements of the other episodes we’ve received so far.
I do love the idea here. Mixing together A New Hope with Pinocchio is a neat idea, and the Science Saru team has fun with it. The animation here is a little cutesier than in the other shorts, but the character designs are endearing (and in the case of the Inquisitor, appropriately scary). And the bumpy movements and changing perspectives are a lot of fun visually.
It’s just hard to connect with what’s going on given some of the other stylistic differences. Maybe it’s a cultural storytelling thing, but there’s little build or cause and effect or connective tissue between scenes here. Events just sort of happen one after the other, very quickly, without a strong sense of one progressing to the other. Some of that, I’m sure, is a result of condensing the traditional “young hero becomes Jedi” story down to thirteen minutes or so. But while we get motivation, conflict, and self-actualization here, they all seem to happen arbitrarily.
Also, this one can be really annoying. The score and sound effects are just a cacophony of bleep-bloopy noises that only sporadically coalesce into a melody and detract from more serious scenes. The young actor who voices T0-B1 is doing his best, but the delivery calls to mind poor Jake Lloyd in The Phantom Menace, which isn’t something to aspire to. On a minute-to-minute basis, this episode is more actively pestersome than anything else in Visions so far.
Despite that, I’m hard-pressed not to be at least a little touched by a young droid kid who wants to become a Jedi and, in finding his way toward the Light, becomes a real boy. The change from his master and creator (Kyle Chandler as an old “almost Jedi”!) calling him “Tee Oh Bee One” to calling him “Toby” cleverly signifies that change, and Toby’s newfound calling to live up to his father’s legacy and help bring back life to the galaxy is a cheerful one.
On the whole, this would be my lowest rated Visions episode of the first six, but it still has enough to recommend it.