Halo Legends Anime Miniseries in the Works

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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Halo Legends Anime Miniseries in the Works



Master Chief, Cortana, and the Arbiter will be getting the anime treatment, Microsoft announced at this week's Comic-Con 2009.

Despite being a runaway success in the Western world, the Halo franchise has never really caught on across the Pacific Ocean in Japan for whatever reason - perhaps it's because the Japanese don't really flock to FPS games the way others do, perhaps it's just the lack of superpowered teenagers, giant robots, and tentacle monsters. Really, your guess is as good as mine.

That doesn't mean that Microsoft feels that Japan has nothing to offer the series, though. Quite the opposite - at Comic-Con, the software giant announced [http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-videogames23-2009jul23,0,5232624.story] Halo Legends, a collection of seven short films drawn in the Japanese anime style.

While Microsoft's own 343 Industries - its internal house devoted to all things Halo - will be financing and overseeing the development of Legends (as well as writing all the scripts), the shorts themselves will be animated by five relatively prominent Japanese studios: Bones, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio4C, and Toei Animation. Shinji Aramaki, director of mecha anime Appleseed and Gasaraki, will be overseeing production on the Microsoft end.

In fact, Aramaki is one of the few Japanese gamers who fell for the Halo series, and was immediately interested in the idea. "I liked that this would be an anthology of human stories told from different characters' perspectives," he said.

The LA Times reported [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2009/07/video-game-publishers-microsoft-ubisoft-invading-hollywoods-turf.html] that 343's Creative Director Frank O'Connor spoke briefly about two of the Halo Legends shorts in particular:

[blockquote]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.

'It's a wildly varied genre, but anime creators do things with weapons and vehicles and technology nobody else does, and that marries very well with Halo,' [O'Connor] 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.'[/blockquote]

One can't help but wonder if the presence of big-name animation studios like Toei and Bones means that Japanese gamers might actually sit up and take notice of the franchise for once, or if they'll respond with a resounding and deafening, "Meh."

(Via Joystiq [http://www.joystiq.com/2009/07/23/microsoft-announces-halo-anime-miniseries/])

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Amnestic

High Priest of Haruhi
Aug 22, 2008
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DigitalJedl said:
Question.
...
Why?
Money, probably. Why else do businesses do anything?

I would've given it to Sunrise after what they did with Code Geass and Gundam 00, but I'm sure Toei will do their job as well as they can.

That said, no matter which studio did it I'm not expecting great results from the Halo anime. I'll still probably watch it just so I can be in the perfect position to complain, but my expectations aren't high.
 

Durahan2

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Mar 12, 2009
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As much as I have a distane for most things halo, I might end up watching it on a boreing day heh.
 

draxious

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Jun 14, 2009
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honestly i dont think halo needs to be animated hell i thought they were making some movie of it
 

DigitalJedl

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Amnestic said:
DigitalJedl said:
Question.
...
Why?
Money, probably. Why else do businesses do anything?

I would've given it to Sunrise after what they did with Code Geass and Gundam 00, but I'm sure Toei will do their job as well as they can.

That said, no matter which studio did it I'm not expecting great results from the Halo anime. I'll still probably watch it just so I can be in the perfect position to complain, but my expectations aren't high.
Agreed.
 

LaBambaMan

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Jul 13, 2009
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This could be very interesting, if done right. I always sorta' dug the Halo mythos, but the games have become dull and repetitive to me.

So long as they keep it serious and avoid giant sweat beads then we should be fine.
 

RavingPenguin

Engaged to PaintyFace
Jan 20, 2009
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*deep breath* YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy!
2 of my favorite things blending together, halo and anime. True the game stories were a bit of a flop, but the books were great. I just pray they dont screw it up.
 

ChromeAlchemist

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Aug 21, 2008
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Amnestic said:
DigitalJedl said:
Question.
...
Why?
Money, probably. Why else do businesses do anything?

I would've given it to Sunrise after what they did with Code Geass and Gundam 00, but I'm sure Toei will do their job as well as they can.

That said, no matter which studio did it I'm not expecting great results from the Halo anime. I'll still probably watch it just so I can be in the perfect position to complain, but my expectations aren't high.
Sunrise probably doesn't do badass enough for them. Wait. Wait! [HEADING=1]WAIT![/HEADING]

Bones is involved?!


They did Soul Eater and Darker than Black for Christ's sake. This will probably be epic.

RavingPenguin said:
*deep breath* YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy!
2 of my favorite things blending together, halo and anime. True the game stories were a bit of a flop, but the books were great. I just pray they dont screw it up.
See above.
 

AmrasCalmacil

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Jul 19, 2008
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Not to be late to jump on the Halo hating bandwagon but - Oh dear, I'm going to cry now.

This is a horrible thing to do.
Maybe it'll be okay, but I'm still throwing my optimism in the bin.
 

ChromeAlchemist

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Aug 21, 2008
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AmrasCalmacil said:
Not to be late to jump on the Halo hating bandwagon but - Oh dear, I'm going to cry now.

This is a horrible thing to do.
Maybe it'll be okay, but I'm still throwing my optimism in the bin.
This is exactly what I was going to say.

Then I realised I'm a BONES (studio) whore. And Toei. This will be interesting at least.
 
May 6, 2009
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CantFaketheFunk said:
One can't help but wonder if the presence of big-name animation studios like Toei and Bones means that Japanese gamers might actually sit up and take notice of the franchise for once, or if they'll respond with a resounding and deafening, "Meh."
Who cares? American geeks outnumber Japanese geeks. The target audience is domestic, not foreign.
 

Amnestic

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Aug 22, 2008
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They did Soul Eater and Darker than Black for Christ's sake. This will probably be epic.
Okey, yeah, Darker than Black was pretty freaking epic I'll give you that much.
 

ChromeAlchemist

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Aug 21, 2008
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Amnestic said:
They did Soul Eater and Darker than Black for Christ's sake. This will probably be epic.
Okey, yeah, Darker than Black was pretty freaking epic I'll give you that much.
It's more the fight scenes in Soul Eater that were Epic. They raped that series to a halt at around 50 episodes, something I cannot forgive, considering it was fairly enjoyable and entertaining overall.

Oh, and they are also behind FMA, the Cowboy Bebop movie (co-production) and Wolf's Rain, among other good works.
 

randommaster

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Sep 10, 2008
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The Japanese aren't going to go for it if the series continues to focus on what the American audience likes, namely, explosions and gruff men shooting things.

What they need to do is find a way to focus the story on family, and friendship, and strength form the heart, and all that jazz.
 

black lincon

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Aug 21, 2008
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Okay, something else halo I'll get to ignore.

However is it just me who thinks that the art style they have above is much to soft for the Halo universe, or at least the human part of it.
 

RavingPenguin

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Jan 20, 2009
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ChromeAlchemist said:
RavingPenguin said:
*deep breath* YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy!
2 of my favorite things blending together, halo and anime. True the game stories were a bit of a flop, but the books were great. I just pray they dont screw it up.
See above.
I know now Im pretty much gauranteed to love it now. Wiki Bones (studio) and youll find a list of my favorite anime in the first paragraph. Eureka 7, Ouran High, Darker than Black, Soul Eater, and Full Metal Alchemist. Horray for Bones!