Yup. The video game franchise, Halo, will be animated Japanese style.

Instead of being a full blown 26 episode series, the Halo anime (titled as Halo Legends) will just be a collection of seven animated shorts, done by various animation studios (sort of like the Animatrix and Batman: Gotham Knight). The studios involved in this project are Production I.G. (Ghost in the Shell series, Blood series), BONES (Eureka Seven, Fullmetal Alchemist), Toei Animation (One Piece, Sailor Moon), Studio 4°C (Transformers Animated, Linkin Park’s ‘Breaking the Habit’), and Casio Entertainment. To add in with the animators is Shinji Aramaki (director of the Appleseed movies) who will be supervising the project as creative director.

Frank O’Connor, director of 343 Industries (division overseeing the Halo franchise), and others have been intimately involved in the project’s stories. They wanted to make sure that the details were right and not misconstrued. However, O’Connor has left the animation studios to do whatever they see fit to the visuals. He states that anime creators are very creative and is sure that their new techniques will work well in the Halo universe.

A preview is planned for XBOX Live in the fall, followed by a release on Blu-ray and DVD early 2010.

[Source:Los Angeles Times]