Looking at the Halo Legend Anime Series (Part I)

Halo Legends starting airing over Xbox Live on alternate Saturdays since November. I believe it is up on YouTube and other sources as well. Some of you may have watched it so here are my brief personal views on the episodes out thus far.

1. The Babysitter
Studio: STUDIO4°C


This is actually currently my favourite episode so far. Nice, clean traditional anime character designs and a memorable story to boot. The plot is based on a familiar concept from the novels (the rivalry between the ODSTs and Spartans). There was a cool twist at the end that left me thinking. Looking forward to see the upcoming "Origins" episode which is done by STUDIO4°C as well.

Halo Geek Moment: That Brute 's Gravity Hammer must be out of batteries seeing how totally UN-destructive its impact is.


2. The Duel
Studio: Production I.G.


This episode centers on one of my most favourite subject matter in the Haloverse; the Sanghelli (aka Elites). The story takes place before they actually joined the Covenant. Seeing them portrayed as olden day honourable Japanese warriors (complete with Kimono!) was a nice touch. Fight scenes were cool, too. Unfortunately, the animation did not do it for me. It was said that they were going for a CGI-meets-watercoloured-painting look but all I saw was a pixelated mess. Some may applaud it for its unique animation style though. Ah well.

Halo Geek Moment: We get to learn how the "Arbiter" became a 'bad' title.

3. The Package
Studio: Casio Entertainment


I found this to be my least favourite episodes so far. So the Spartans are supposed to retrieve a 'package' from a Convenant ship. What ensues is 15+ minutes of filler'ish back-to-back action sequences that seem to serve no purpose other than to showcase the studio's 3D polygons/CGI rendering prowess. It's very mindless and disappointing to me.

Halo Geek Moment: In some parts of the action scenes, the camera switches to a first-person view (complete with crosshair) similar to the video game. This would've been a cool gimmick... if they did not re-use it multiple times during said action sequence.

-----------------------------------------------------

The remaining episodes will be aired over the first few months of the new year. I am actually planning to get the DVD/Blu-Ray just so that I can experience the anime a second time in Japanese. hehe.

STGCC 2009 - Looking Back

I went to the Singapore Toys, Games & Comics Convention on Saturday. Met up with Miya, Akira, Mango and Rhyfe who all came and left at different timings. My experience this time was a whole lot better than last year's since I did not just walk one round then left due to the massive crowd.

I mainly checked out the booths selling graphic novels and toys. I didn't realize that the Mighty Muggs here were tons more expensive than what I saw at the ACGHK2009. This made me feel that I should've bought more from HK; they were only like SGD$10 apiece and would've made great gifts.

Some pretty Japanese collectible figures caught my eyes but, once again, I refrained from buying them. I know that one of these days, I'm so gonna give in. lol

I managed to catch a bit of the cosplay competition that went on. There were a lot of cool costumes like the Predator (of which there were two), Wolverine (complete with cigar!), the Master Chief, the Prince from Hellboy 2, Jason (Friday the 13th) and many more.




Wolverine looking real manly with his cigar.


Master Chief: "You can count on me to Finish the Fight!"

There was this laughable red ghost from Pac-Man (the emcee kept referring to the ghost as "Pac-Man"...). The guy looked like he just draped a large red cloth over himself. What was even more upsetting was that the he actually won the bloody competition.



No offense to the guy, but unless there is some complex wire-frame structure underneath that red cloth holding the costume up, I am very, very unimpressed. 'Thanks' to the audience who voted him just for the lawls.

I stayed on at the event until around 7+ pm. By then, the crowd has mostly cleared out and, while I was making my last pass through the various booths, I chanced upon something that I had missed the first time round:


Many have argued that it's a shameless Mighty Muggs rip-off but I still think he looks cute!

Some cosplayers that stood out to me:


There was a too-cool-for-words home-made Bumblebee (complete with flashing lights) walking around but I forgot to snap his picture.

Halo Legends Anime

Halo is getting an anime! I was like really happyface when the news was first announced. Now there is a trailer for it as well.



The series will consist of 7 shorts produced by several Japanese studios: The BONES, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio 4°C, and Toei Animation.

Halo has such a rich universe and backstory with tons of interesting characters. That's a lot of source material right there to base an anime on. Despite the fact that they are standalone shorts (and possibly not heavy on plot), I am still excited at how the anime will turn out.

The action sequences in the trailer reminded me of Gundam. Even more strangely, the characters in this screenshot look like they were taken out of an episode of Gundam SEED (ZAFT uniform lol).


Excuse me, you've got your Gundam in my Halo.