Seven short films from five of the world’s top anime studios being prepped for released next year under the heading “Halo Legends”.

Microsoft is all set to reveal its newest expansion of the Halo universe this week at the Comic-Con event in San Diego, USA. The LA Times has been given a sneak peak at the announcement, and the first images have already been released.

The project is being overseen by 343 Industries, the internal Microsoft division responsible for Halo in much the same way that George Lucas oversees Star Wars. All five of the animation studios involved are based in Japan, home of the distinctive ‘anime’ graphical style, and these are Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Bones, Studio4 C, and Toei Animation. Renowned anime director Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed) is producing the series of seven and acting as director on an episode depicting the history of the Spartans.

Halo Legends will be released as a series of seven short on DVD, Blu-ray and via digital download sometime in 2010.