“Halo Legends” Announced at Comic-Con

Microsoft announced it’s new anime project, Halo Legends, at the San Diego Comic Con today. The project, a direct-to-video series of anime shorts in the vein of Batman: Gotham Knight, and the Animatrix. The studios attached to the project include Production I.G. (Ghost in the Shell, Black Lagoon), Studio 4°C (Tekkonkinkreet, Spriggan), BONES (Fullmetal Alchemist, Wolf’s Rain), Casio Entertainment, & Toei (Harlock ’78, Sailor Moon, Galaxy Express 999) – with Toei’s installment being non-canon, the rest being within canon.

Two directors have also been attached to the project – Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed, Megazone 23), and Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Mobile Police Patlabor) are both directing shorts. Aramaki will be directing an installment about the Spartan project, and the topic of Oshii’s installment is as yet unknown, with Master Chief only playing a role in one of the shorts.

EDIT: Correction from AnimeNewsNetwork.com –  Oshii is not an episode director of any of the installments of “Halo Legends”, he is the creative director of Production I.G’s two episodes of the series. It isn’t clear what precisely this will entail, but likely he’ll be providing some guidance to the style of the episodes, as well as to the story, without taking the more hands-on role of the episode director.