Every Star Wars Celebration, attendee badges are covered with unique, wonderful art, celebrating the characters and locales of the galaxy far, far away. But next year, the convention is heading back to Japan for the first time since 2008: and its badge art is going all out on Star Wars‘ long and influential connection to Japanese culture.
This week Lucasfilm officially revealed five of the 17 pieces of art that will adorn the various available badges for Celebration Japan next year. Illustrated by TAKUMI, the 2025 badges all take inspiration from traditional Japanese woodblock printing style known as ukiyo-e, popularized around the 17th and 18th centuries—transforming Yoda, Darth Vader, Luke, Ahsoka Tano, and Din Djarin and his young green ward into noble warriors and mythic creatures. Take a look at the stunning art below.
Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025 Badge Art Preview
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“When I was working on the badge art, I spent a lot of time revisiting the characteristics and backgrounds of each character, thinking about how to adapt their narrative into the ukiyo-e,” TAKUMI told the official Star Wars website about his process for each piece. “I looked back at the stories depicted in the masterpieces by ukiyo-e artists of the past, analyzing the motifs and elements woven into their compositions, and thought about which characters’ narratives would best fit with those themes. The research continued until I found the right theme for each character.” Each portrait incorporates elements of traditional Japanese clothing, historical armor, and weaponry into the Star Wars style, a fusion of Western design and Japanese history—something we’ve seen in plenty of Star Wars fusion art before, like Luke, Ahsoka, and Vader’s lightsaber-katanas, which wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Star Wars Visions.
But it each also includes a lot of natural elements with motifs connecting to the respective characters, like plants and flowers, as well as the presence of the moon across each piece (that is, indeed, a moon, and not a moon-shaped planet killing space station). “If you look at the masterpieces of ukiyo-e from the Edo period, you’ll find that using a common theme or essence across connected artworks is a traditional technique,” TAKUMI said of the embellishments. “While not every flower or plant has a specific meaning, I chose certain motifs based on how well they matched the character’s theme color or traits. In some cases, I also drew connections between the character’s background or story and the symbolic meanings of the motifs.”
With 2025 also being Revenge of the Sith‘s 20th anniversary, fingers crossed we’ll get to see some prequels characters in this gorgeous style too as we see more of the badge art, ahead of Star Wars Celebration Japan kicking off in April 2025.
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