The LA Times reports that Halo is set to receive the Anime treatment. Seven short films are already in the works by Bones, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio4 C, Toei Animation, and Shinji Aramaki. Set to be revealed later today at Comic-Con, the shorts will cover a wide range of stories told from different perspectives from various characters within the Halo universe.
Expect to see more on these Halo shorts later today when Comic-Con 2009 kicks off at the San Diego Convention Center. In addition, live-action shorts for Assassin's Creed II, dubbed Lineage, are also set to be revealed. These shorts will each run about 15 minutes long and will focus on the father of Ezio. Ezio, as you may recall, is the main character in Assassin's Creed II.
Aramaki is directing his own short that tell the history of the Spartans, a warrior class in the game's fictional universe that main character Master Chief is part of. Though Halo isn't particularly popular in Japan -- most of its 27 million units sold have been in North American and Europe -- Aramaki said he's a player and was immediately interested in the possibility.
"I liked that this would be an anthology of human stories told from different characters' perspectives," he explained.
Frank O'Connor, creative director of 343, gave a peek at some of the other Halo Legend shorts. Studio4 C's project, tentatively called "Origins," is a two-parter that's about 30 minutes long in total and tells the entire 100,000 year history of the Halo universe. Another, from Toei, is the only one outside of the official canon and pokes fun at some of the game's characters.
Within the general anime style, the visual look of the projects differs widely.
"It's a wildly varied genre, but anime creators do things with weapons and vehicle and technology nobody else does and that marries very well with Halo," he explained. "It's amazing to see some of the new stuff they're introducing and how neatly it maps to the visual aesthetics in the Halo universe."
"I liked that this would be an anthology of human stories told from different characters' perspectives," he explained.
Frank O'Connor, creative director of 343, gave a peek at some of the other Halo Legend shorts. Studio4 C's project, tentatively called "Origins," is a two-parter that's about 30 minutes long in total and tells the entire 100,000 year history of the Halo universe. Another, from Toei, is the only one outside of the official canon and pokes fun at some of the game's characters.
Within the general anime style, the visual look of the projects differs widely.
"It's a wildly varied genre, but anime creators do things with weapons and vehicle and technology nobody else does and that marries very well with Halo," he explained. "It's amazing to see some of the new stuff they're introducing and how neatly it maps to the visual aesthetics in the Halo universe."
Expect to see more on these Halo shorts later today when Comic-Con 2009 kicks off at the San Diego Convention Center. In addition, live-action shorts for Assassin's Creed II, dubbed Lineage, are also set to be revealed. These shorts will each run about 15 minutes long and will focus on the father of Ezio. Ezio, as you may recall, is the main character in Assassin's Creed II.
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