Yes, No Sound But The Best Secret ‘Star Wars’ Manga Video You’ve Seen [Star Wars]

Star Wars was originally adapted from a 1958 Japanese film called The Hidden Fortress directed by Akira Kurosawa and has lots of Japanese imagery like Darth Vader’s samurai helmet. So, it fits perfectly into the Japanese animation style known as Manga.

io9 stumbled onto one of the most amazing Star Wars Manga films I’ve ever seen. I say stumbled onto because you can’t even find it without a link. The reason is that it’s still a work in progress by a fan not a professional. YouTube creator OtaKing77077 explains in the description.

The latest secret unfinished test stuff for /m/en to dissect. Even more has been added since last time, and it’s in some sort of order now instead of just random spaceships, but still needs a bunch of stuff doing. Big capital ships need to explode at the end, and explosions take days to animate (but are strangely fun).

It’s an improvement over the first version though.

To see how it’s evolved so far, here’s the very first version from a couple of months ago.

A lot of the commentors complained about the lack of sound. So, yes there’s no sound, but it’s still insanely cool.

Many commentors also suggested that LucasFilm hire him and I can’t agree more. It’s great stuff and with a little help could be cooler than Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

UPDATE: The original video has been removed. Here’s another version with some music added.

UPDATE 2: The creator of the original short has been pretty aggressive about the fact that he didn’t want this film distributed for public viewing (here’s the full explanation). Out of respect, we have removed the mirror. Instead, we’ll just show you some screencaps and summarize the original short.

The film starts out with some Imperial starcruisers jumping into a star system. It’s a familiar shot for SW fans, but impressive to see it rendered hand-drawn.

 We cut aboard one of the starcruisers, where we see stormtroopers, Imperial commanders, and even AT-AT walkers in the cargo bay.

Most of the short is from the perspective of the TIE fighter pilots. We see them jump into their ships and launch into battle.

 A cool effect during the battle is that it occasionally switches to the TIE pilots without their helmets, as if the helmets melted away. To see the faces of the enemy makes them oddly human, an unfamiliar feeling.

The actual space battle is impossible to capture with screenshots effectively. The fighters sweep around, blasting laserfire. At one point, a TIE fighter flies over and through an asteroid.

The TIE fighters engage with a squadron of X-wing fighters, along with some rebel transports.

What do you think of the video? Should he keep working on it? Should Lucas hire him?

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