The Ninth Jedi creators explain its changing lightsabers
The Production I.G team explains the anime’s colour-changing lightsabers, samurai influences and competing ideas of justice.
The creators of Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi have explained how its changing lightsabers, samurai influences and competing ideas of justice shaped the anime’s new generation of Jedi. In a lengthy interview with Anime News Network, Production I.G supervising director Kenji Kamiyama, series director Shunsuke Tada and producer Hitoshi Itō discussed the thinking behind the newly released series. 1
Why the lightsabers change colour
Kamiyama said the idea began with a childhood misunderstanding: he once thought a lightsaber’s colour changed according to its user’s connection to the Force. That memory became the starting point for a story in which Zhima’s handmade lightsabers respond to the emotional and spiritual state of their users. The creators clarified that only the sabers made by Zhima change colour; older weapons do not. 1
The colours are not a simple personality chart. Tada described the silver blade and its “State of Nothingness” as a transitional stage on the way to discovering what matters to each Jedi. Red represents a fall towards anger, while green, blue and other colours reflect individual paths rather than fixed moral labels.
A different kind of Jedi story
The team drew on Japanese martial-arts traditions and Akira Kurosawa’s samurai films when defining heroism in The Ninth Jedi. Kamiyama said he wanted to show justice as compassion, self-sacrifice and a willingness to help people who are vulnerable, rather than treating power as both the goal and the route to peace. 1
That idea separates Kara’s journey from Nawaam’s. Both characters seek peace, but Nawaam believes overwhelming strength is the quickest route, while Kara ultimately chooses compassion even when it is slower and more difficult. The directors said the series is not intended simply to reject the older Jedi Order, but to imagine how its ideals might be carried forward.
The interview also confirms that the series is deliberately non-canon and was designed around a fresh interpretation of the Star Wars universe. Its creators said they would be interested in continuing the story, particularly because an eight-episode run left supporting characters and parts of the wider galaxy unexplored.
Our opinion
This is the most useful kind of creator interview: it connects a striking visual idea to the story’s moral argument. The colour-changing sabers are not merely a flashy rule for The Ninth Jedi; they make inner conflict visible, allowing the series to ask whether strength is valuable without compassion. That gives Kara’s choices more weight than a standard light-versus-dark setup, while the creators’ openness to a continuation suggests this new corner of Star Wars has room to grow.