A Japanese Star Wars fan's bookshelf will look a lot different than an American fan's bookshelf. Put aside the language difference for now, there's a big difference in format. Japanese paperbacks are often quite small -- literally pocket books -- and to fit a Star Wars novel into that space often requires serializing the content -- spreading a single book's worth of story across multiple books. Turning a novel into a series (sometimes) requires new cover art, so that a reader can easily differentiate which book is part one or part two. In some cases, the American cover art has been re-used for book one, and brand new art has been commissioned for part two. In other cases, it's wholly new art across the board.

Presented here and in two upcoming articles is a showcase of Japanese cover art. This is by no means a complete guide, but rather a sampling. This first assortment looks at a few older books. Aside from the trilogy novelizations, the books here represent the Japanese counterparts to the US Bantam book series of the '90s. Be sure to click on the cover art for an expanded view, without the comparative American cover thumbnail, to get a closer view of the art. And come back tomorrow for a showcase of amazing covers from The New Jedi Order. Get started here.