Animated Halos discovered via digital distribution

Good news Halo fan, your saturday mornings will soon include the whimsical adventures of Master Chief and potentially his quirky band of animal sidekicks. Okay, well not quite, but animated Halo is coming. Microsoft has just announced an anime series based on the Halo franchise, dubbed Halo Legends, which will be overseen by their newly formed 343 Productions.

The series will be a joint effort by several noted Japanese animation houses, including Bones, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio4 C, and Toei Animation. Shinji Aramaki (of Appleseed fame) will be acting as director.

An article from the L.A. Times seems to imply the series will be created very much in the vein of the Animatrix:

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.

A trailer will be premiering today at Comic-Con, we’ll have it up for you when its available. Until, you’ll have to deal with the 3000 other Halo-based products already out.

Update: We just learned that Halo Legends won’t be released through traditional means. Rather through a new Halo based digital distraction service on Xbox Live dubbed “Halo Waypoint”. The portal will also offer Halo-centric news, activities, as well as podcasts, trailers, images and more. Likewise, there will be a career system, which will track your career in Halo, or something. We’re not really clear on that one yet. At any rate, Microsoft is in full Halo-milking mode – fans can officially rejoice.