Ahsoka episode 3 arrived last night, teasing a trip to another galaxy far, far away. This will be a first for Star Wars so we’re hoping some surprises will be on the other side of that hyperspace gate quite unlike anything we’ve seen in the franchise to date.
In the meantime, episode three delivered some fun action and we liked seeing Ahsoka giving Sabine some Jedi training that was extremely reminiscent of Obi-Wan training Luke aboard the Millennium Falcon. During this, the show casually dropped an Easter egg that references the heavy influence samurai movies had on Star Wars.
When Ahsoka decides to block Sabine’s vision in order to encourage her to reach beyond her perceptions and feel the Force, she dubs the training method and style as “Zatochi”. This is just one letter away from “Zatoichi”, a fictional blind samurai who’s a popular hero in fiction, TV and movies.
Star Wars hasn’t been shy about referencing Zatoichi before, with the most prominent example Rogue One‘s blind warrior Chirrut Îmwe.
Now that Ahsoka has defined this form of lightsaber training/combat expect it to very soon have its own place in the Star Wars canon alongside the many other saber styles seen across the franchise.
As for Sabine? Well, we don’t yet know whether it’s really true that she has exceptionally poor Force potential, though the show is hanging so many Chekov’s Guns (Chekhov’s Blasters?) on the mantlepiece we’re fully expecting her to throw out some killer moves later in the season.