A new Star Wars manga, Path of the Lightsaber, will further explore the sequel trilogy era – with connections to the High Republic

Lightsabers always make for exciting stories, and Star Wars fans will get to read a new story about one this year that sounds especially interesting.

Announced recently via ScreenRant, a new manga written by Kenny Ruiz will release sometime this year, titled Star Wars: Path of the Lightsaber. The story is set in-between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker and stars a young character, Nioka, who looks up to Luke Skywalker and wants to be a Jedi like him. One day, Nioka finds a lightsaber while exploring a High Republic-era ship, and she has to learn how to use it while fending off others who are after such a valuable artifact.

Just from that information, this already sounds extremely exciting – for several reasons. For one, it’s a story set within the sequel trilogy timeline, which we haven’t gotten much of but that Star Wars is beginning to explore with more earnestness. Setting the story in this period opens up so much storytelling potential. Since Nioka idolizes Luke, how will she hear of his death – and what will her reaction to it be? How does the galaxy respond to Luke’s death? Furthermore, will her adventures bring her into contact with any of the sequel heroes? After all, it would seem like a young girl wielding a lightsaber might draw the attention of Rey, and perhaps this could even help Star Wars begin to jump post-The Rise of Skywalker and hint toward the coming Rey movie where she tries to train a new generation of Jedi.

Another reason this story sounds interesting is the connection to the High Republic, an era set 200 years before the prequel trilogy that has been a huge focus in publishing in recent years. This lightsaber could belong to any number of Jedi from that era, and I hope it belonged to someone we’ve already met and gotten to know a bit in these stories. Having this adventure connect back to the High Republic through this lightsaber is a lot of fun.

We don’t know much more about this manga at the moment, but ScreenRant noted that more information will be revealed at Star Wars Celebration in April.