I just finished watching Visions. I decided to watch it in Japanese, since I watch a lot of Japanese TV with subtitles and it felt appropriate. And I think it was definitely the right choice. Most of these are steeped in the Japanese cultural and historical elements that Lucas only tried to imitate from the outside, so I don't think I would've gotten the full flavor if I'd watched the English dub. Still, the only subtitles available are the closed-captioning subs for the English version, so I could tell that sometimes the dialogue was changed -- or other things, like how the captions for "Lop and Ochō" specified a female narrator at the beginning when it was a male narrator in Japanese.
I see a lot of talk in the early pages of this thread about the canon question (before it got dragged off topic), but I don't see much of an issue there. Most of them are pretty clear about what point in the timeline they occupy -- ranging from the days of the Republic ("The Elder") to centuries after the Skywalker Saga ("The Ninth Jedi") -- and it's a big enough galaxy that I can believe these side stories could've happened somewhere, with variants of Jedi and Sith and lightsaber designs that never happened to show up in the Skywalker Saga. I mean, it's no weirder than the Darksaber or the Nightsisters. There were a few things that were hard to swallow, like the Twins breathing in space or the Astro Boy droid somehow becoming a Jedi, but that's okay. Fans today tend to take Star Wars way too seriously and forget that it was meant as a fun adventure for kids of all ages. All of it is pure fantasy without any pretense of realism. And there's room for poetic license here and there.
Individually:
"The Duel": Eh, it was okay. Maybe a bit too much what you'd expect from a Japanese riff on Star Wars, just a straight-up ronin-vs.-warlord story dressed up with lightsabers and droids. Interesting look, mostly monochrome.
"Tatooine Rhapsody": A relatively fun bit of fluff, insubstantial but a nice departure from the usual war stories, with the protagonist finding a different way to defeat the villain.
"The Twins": Not a favorite. It feels like it's just a bunch of SW and anime tropes blended together. Maybe that's true of a lot of these, but it felt more blatant here. And it went way too over-the-top with the swordfight in space. A decent idea with the two core characters, but it could've been executed better.
"The Village Bride": A nice one, with an interesting application of the Force (I assume), with the shrine that shows visions of the planet's past.
"The Ninth Jedi": Certainly a highlight, almost a movie-worthy story in its own right. An intriguing glimpse into a possible far future for the franchise. Most of these revolve heavily around lightsabers, but this one most of all, having them be a lost technology that's only just been reinvented, and having their acquisition be the driving force in the story. The bit about the crystals changing the beam color to show the good or evil character of the wielder was a bit contrived, but they did say the swordsmith had devised a new way to tune them to allow that, and it made for an effective reveal.
"T0-B1": It's Astro Boy Wars, what more can I say? As a mashup of the two, it was decent. But it's hard to judge its merits on its own when it's such an exercise in pastiche.
"The Elder": An okay one, but surprisingly slow-paced and talky, with very little happening until the title villain shows up. The Jedi Master reminded me of Qui-Gon Jinn, right down to his Japanese voice actor sounding a lot like Liam Neeson.
"Lop and Ochō": Possibly my favorite. A poignant story about family, love, and betrayal, bringing a tear to my eye at a couple of points. I like the designs and animation (aside from the Star Destroyer shot near the beginning). And it's wild that they chose to make the main character the same species as Jaxxon, the anthropomorphic rabbit alien from the old Marvel comics. The only drawback is that it ended too inconclusively. But hopefully that means there will be a sequel.
"Akakiri": My least favorite. Unappealing character designs, a somewhat vague story, and a depressingly dark ending. It was a bad idea, I think, to finish the season on such a downbeat note.
