Given Star Wars Celebration is in Japan this year, I appreciate they not only had the traditional Lucasfilm Publishing Panel, which teased new information about the upcoming finale of The High Republic, revealed covers and characters coming to the comics, a full series Andor artbook, and more, but there was a Manga Mania panel celebrating the form, which included several announcements! Find all the news below!
The High Republic
It’s wild to think this is the last Celebration talking about the main High Republic storyline! They keep hinting at something’s coming after this is all done in June, but no one’s sharing anything at the moment on what that could be. As for what they did share, we got a look at the full wrap-around cover (above!) for Charles Soule’s June 17 Trials of the Jedi novel, which shows the full squad of brave Jedi armored up for their journey to Planet X to solve the mystery of the Nameless and Blight once and for all.
We originally got concept art for only some members of what is now being called the Luminous Nine, back at NYCC 2024: Avar Kriss, Burryaga, Azlin Rell, Bell Zettifar, and Elzar Man. At Celebration Japan 2025, we got the full squad revealed in concept art as well, adding four more members: Torban “Buckets of Blood” Buck, Yoda, Terec, and Ty Yorrick! The designs are really cool, but what I love more is this group being called the Luminous Nine. The High Republic was teased as Project Luminous before its reveal, while the authors are often called the Luminous, and there’s even references in the books about a group called the Luminous, so this was a neat way to honor the initiative’s beginnings. And nine is a pretty important number because, well, it ALMOST lines up with those very writers who get called Luminous! Cavan Scott, Daniel José Older, Charles Soule, Justina Ireland, Claudia Gray, Lydia Kang, George Mann, Alyssa Wong, Tessa Gratton, and Zoriada Cordova, and of course Lucasfilm Publishing Creative Director Michael Siglain, who brought them all together! Whether they did this on purpose or not, now fans will have to pick which character represents which creative! A few quick picks for me would be: Older has to be Torban, Yoda would be Siglain, Soule is Azlin, Scott is Burryaga, Gray is Reath Silas…it’s tougher from there, but share your list with us when you put it together! UPDATE: My sleep addled brain, as while I’m not in Japan I stayed up late to watch some of this news and my dog hasn’t been feeling well and has been waking us up in the middle of the night, I forgot two Luminous authors so the Luminous Nine doesn’t quite line up with the amount of authors, but you can still sort of line up a few of the Nine with certain author or author pairs for fun!
First teased in a solicitation for the trade paperback release of Scott’s The High Republic: Fear of the Jedi, the curtain was officially pulled back on The High Republic: The Finale – The Beacon #1! Out July 30, written by Scott (who had a brief chat about it on his newsletter. Also, happy belated birthday!), with art by Marika Cresta, the comic one-shot will be the final release, hence its name, and concludes Phase III for good (but not the High Republic overall…). We got two covers, as seen above, and the one from Ario Anindito (love he’s back for at least a cover!) promises several survivors having a good time celebrating victory, but we’ll see if those faces really make it or not in the stories ahead!
Lastly for the High Republic section of the news, previews were shown for Alyssa Wong’s upcoming The High Republic Adventures Phase III – The Battle of Eriadu, out April 30, as seen above. Driggit Parse and Gavi’s story has been an excellent roller coaster to watch since Escape from Valo and I’m eager to see how hard Wong’s finale for their story will hit. Check back April 30 for my review!
Manga
Now it’s time for the manga!! Let’s kick this off with Jedi: Fallen Order! Of all the ideas for adaptations, video games are one I can get behind, as not everyone might be able to play, so this makes those stories accessible. Artwork is looking pretty dang neat so far and I like the character designs a ton. This wasn’t the only notable Jedi video game news at Celebration, as new action figures were announced, as Nightsister Merrin gets a Black Series and Vintage Collection release (finally!!!), and Cal Kestis gets a hilarious new release, which sees him packed with BD-1, of course, but also Turgle and Skoova Stev (!!!), two big fan-favorites from Jedi: Survivor, while Cal has a secondary head option of his mullet and mustache look! What a wild yet fun release.
Previously announced, we got a big preview of Path of the Lightsaber Vol. 1, written and drawn by Kenny Ruiz. This original story is set during the sequel trilogy and follows Nioka, who dreams to become a Jedi, stumbling upon a lightsaber on a High Republic-era ship (they aren’t saying whose lightsaber it is….). This brings her to the attention of the likes of the First Order and a newly revealed Knight of Ren Apprentice, created just for this story. It’s not the only Knight of Ren announced today, but more on that later. Check out the new manga series starting November 11!
The Art of Star Wars: A New Hope – The Manga is big two volume collection of Hisao Tamaki’s 1997 manga retelling of A New Hope. It’ll showcase scans from his original storyboards and an English translation as well, while there are two unique editions only available on the Kickstarter page. This is set for sometime in 2026.
And the last adaptation is a story that is running out for formats to be adapted into: Thrawn, based off Timothy Zahn’s 2017 novel of the same name, by Man Tsang. Looking at the previews, it’s interesting to see Thrawn not in blue for once, and I’m wondering if this will be more expanded than the comic version.
Novels/Comics/Other Publishing
While there were several reveals and new covers, previews, and details on already announced releases, three announcements I felt were drowned out/not focused on much (and aren’t included in the official site’s round-up of news), but thanks to the teams at Distant Echoes and Star Wars Explained, they haven’t gone completely unnoticed: 1) Alyssa Wong is working on a project they can’t talk about and I hope it’s an expansion on some of their Doctor Aphra (2020) characters, as Aphra already has a new series coming from someone else, but I’m eager to learn about whatever Wong’s up to! 2) There’s a Millennium Falcon comic coming, but that’s about all we know about it. 3) And lastly, Dr. Chris Kempshall, which the Manor’s Chris reviewed his The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire novel, is working on something to do with Wedge Antilles!
Revealed in the week leading up to Celebration, Master of Evil got some clarification from author Adam Christopher, saying the novel is set during a gap in Charles Soule’s Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith comic! Makes a lot of sense given the blurb’s details on the story, while if anyone can make focusing on such a gap in time, Christopher’s the one for the job. It’s out November 11.
The excellent so far Jedi Knights comic will bring Ahmed Best’s Kelleran Beq, first seen in the in-universe gameshow Jedi Temple Challenge and later in The Mandalorian rescuing Grogu, to the series in its upcoming eight issue in October! There are a few covers to grab which feature him, as seen above! Yaddle is also confirmed for the series and I love how she’s had quite the renaissance as of late!
Legacy of Vader, the comic from Charles Soule focusing on Kylo Ren in the wake of The Last Jedi, got some new covers for its sixth, seventh, and eighth issues, while they showed off another new Knights of Ren character, Tava Ren! She’s described as an Order 66 survivor, so how she got this far and linked up with the Knights, especially in Kylo’s absence, will be interesting to learn!
Ethan Sacks was on-hand to discuss his upcoming Hyperspace Stories: Codebreaker, the Poe Dameron focused miniseries from Dark Horse, and the cover for the final issue was revealed (above). They also showed additional covers for Marvel’s Star Wars (2025) series by Alex Segura, but we’ve not gotten those outside of fan’s photos.
Reference books and art books also had their time to shine at the panel, as The Art of Star Wars: Andor (The Complete Series), written by Phil Szostak, was announced for a March 2026 release (and hopefully we’ll have season 2 on physical media by then too), while Industrial Light & Magic: 50 Years of Innovation, out November 4, will showcase the visual journey of memorable movie moments!
That about covers (didn’t mean to get punny, but why not!) it for all the publishing news, and while there’s nothing more on the docket for Celebration, we’ll keep our eyes open and bring you any additional news if it happens!
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him and the website on Bluesky.