Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord…wow wow wow, what a start! For those that don’t know, Maul is up there as one of my favourite Star Wars characters of all time (alongside Plo Koon!). So when I was sat in the room with fellow animation fans at Star Wars Celebration Japan (SWCJ) last year and they revealed Maul was getting his own series with Maul – Shadow Lord, I could NOT be more excited.

I’ll never forget the moment when we saw the trailer for the series featuring a brand new art style (I’ll get into that), Maul being a badass and a young pink-ish Twi’Lek. Not just the trailer but Sam Witwer himself came on stage to “Play it again!” in Maul’s voice. I lost it…

Fast forward to today, nearly a year later, and we finally have our hands on the show, with Episodes 1-2 releasing last week and 3-4 yesterday morning.

Story

Maul – Shadow Lord takes place somewhere in 18-BBY or 17-BBY, and follows Maul’s journey following his departure in Clone Wars S7 Ep12. StarWars.com also suggests that the show takes place a few years after the Clone Wars ends, which makes sense for one particular reason. The Imperial ISD that we see in trailers. The earliest appearance of an ISD was in the finale of Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3, so it stands to reason that Maul – Shadow Lord takes place around a similar timeframe.

Episodes 1-2 I thought set the scene for the show brilliantly. We were introduced to, pretty much, all the new characters for the show. Including Devon Izara, Captain Brander Lawson, Looti Vario, Nico Demis, and so many others. Some early highlights for me are Two-Boots and Spybot.

It also introduced us to Janix, the primary location of the show, which feels very familiar already thanks to the way the show gets stuck straight into the story. Janix to me feels like what you’d get if you mix the Coruscant Underworld with the Upper Levels, whilst feeling entirely unique and in fact, nothing like Coruscant. Perhaps helped by the art style.

The story of Maul – Shadow Lord is dark and gritty, with the wonderous splash of the mystical that you come to expect with Jedi & Sith, despite this it does feel grounded in reality as a result of the period of time we find ourselves in. As many reviewers have said, it feels similar to Andor in that sense and I love it.

With Episodes 3-4, it pushed the story along further, answering questions fans had since Clone Wars S7 and it gave me even more about some decisions made by one particular character that has major implications for the rest of the show. The story has me gripped, the characters intrigue me and Janix feels original yet familiar. I can’t wait to see what’s to come next week.

The Looks!?

I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say Maul – Shadow Lord looks unbelievably good. It’s familiar to us as Star Wars fans because it builds on the style used in the Clone Wars, Bad Batch, and the Tales series, yet it’s different with this beautiful brush work that sits on the top of it. At the time of reveal in Japan it felt very fitting as it felt it had Japanese influence, something that influenced George Lucas greatly when creating Star Wars.

Many of the cityscapes in the background of the show are real world matte paintings, a technique typically done digitally these days, but I feel it really shows. In all aspects of the show you can see the brush work, it truly elevates the animation and generates a level of chaos we’ve never see before. Something that fits the show brilliantly as it’s told through Maul’s eyes.

I could probably go on and on about the same things with this show, but without going into spoilers, it’s excellent thus far and if this standard follows for the remaining 6 episodes it could easily sit at the top as my favourite animated TV show of all time. If you haven’t given the show a chance yet, I strongly encourage you to do so and then come back and let me know what you think! If you have seen it, let me know your thoughts below!

If you want to know my in-depth thoughts with spoilers, I’ll be releasing an article following the end of the show on May 4th, so stay tuned!