Half an hour to go before I turn on Halo: waypoint and get my Sangheili fix with the new Legends ep "The Duel."

Might as well spend it reading the Evolutions short story anthology. It's out early here. At over 500 pages, even at trade paperback prices, this is good value for your money.

I can't wait to see the next episode myself! I'm going to watch it when I get up though, as I like getting that nostalgic feeling of watching Cartoons when I get up on Saturday.

Yay for Samurai and Female Elites/

Aww, that was both sad and incredibly cheesy.

I couldn't help but burst out laughing at the massive gush of blood near the end.

This was a nice episode, very interesting art style, not what I expected from Production I.G.

I expected the ending, but it was cool seeing the Arbiter showing why he's the Arbiter.


The Samurai armor would be a cool contrast to the Hayabusa if it was in 3, if there was more Elite armor I'd use them (I think I still will when I get more armor).

Good story, worst possible medium to tell it. This one was barely watchable.

So, The Duel:
I'll be honest, I wasn't too excited about this one when Halo Legends was announced. Something about the art style I didn't like. However, when I saw it in motion, it's so much better than I thought it would be.

The entire short was quite awesome, and while I prefer the ODST short to this one, that didn't detract from this one at all.

That aside, I did have some issues with it.

The female elite's face freaked me out for one thing, and the giggleing was quite odd to say the least.

The Arbiter taking down an entire army is quite ridiculous, but I don't care because it was badass.

For being called "The Duel" the duel itself was quite underwhelming. I couldn't help but feel cheated out of it. I was going to complain about the gyser of blood, but then I remebered it was funny, and that Elites have mutiple hearts.

Also, that random grunt was hilarious.

Kind of a strange artistic liberty to make their mandibles magically join when the armor is off. Except in the end on the cliche "NOOOOO" with the viewpoint panning up sequence. That nagged at me a bit. I was surprised that they didn't give the female any, either.

The samurai armor and Japanese garb are forgivable because they looked alright, but I find it difficult to believe that the Sangheili lived in quaint little huts. Especially a race that was quite advanced even during that period, made moreso by the Forerunner tech.

The art was nice, the combat was well choreographed. Overall though, I was unimpressed with the short as a whole. Maybe people who like anime can stomach all the weird cliches it tosses at the audience, because I cannot. The Babysitter was fairly decent, The Duel was a bit poopy. I much prefer the art and story of Halo in the hands of people who actually know the franchise.

My biggest issue with the Duel was the art style. I understand the mood/atmosphere they were going for with the "Watercolour" look, but to me it felt like I was watching it with my glasses off, which annoyed me when I wanted to see details of the Elite characters, particularly characters like Haan (the female). I know what a human looks like; I'd have liked a clearer look at Elites.

Frankie has said that Haan isn't exactly canon, and that some liberties were taken (like how some of the Elites don't have their four mandibles clearly visible at all times). There was also a mention that one of the reasons were to convey ideas about Haan's personality/role and so that people would understand she is supposed to be attractive. I don't agree with that myself, wanting Elites to look, well, non-human, but whatever.

That being said, I did like this story quite a bit. I like the explanation how "Arbiter" went from a Sangheili leadership position to a Covenant badge of shame and redemption. I didn't mind Haan's giggling as it was clear that she and Fal were happy together and provided the context to show what he lost. I was very impressed with the subtlety given to Ro when Haka forced him to help with the attack and how upset and frightened he was. And the fight with the army was badass. I particularly like how the Covenant is not portrayed as a monolith of blindly obedient followers. The Sangheili have character and personality of their own and it shows through here.

So, to me this is like Animated. The art style is not for me, but I like the story enough to look past that.

I found the whole thing to basically be a parody of classic cheesy Japanese samurai movies. The massive gush of blood just made me grin.

I dug it, had everything to make a kick ass samurai tale cept it was sangheli not samurai.

Only thing it was missing was something about their master, or the main bad guy turned out to be Arbiters brother.

I was kind of disappointed in the art style. The story was okay, I felt that the Japanization of the Elites was distracting at best.

However, seeing the Arbiter take out an entire Army and a giant Hunter was awesome!

Part 1 of "The Package" is up now.
We finally have faces for Kelly and Fred now. It's nice that they included spartans who been in other fiction before, instead of making up new ones. Can't wait to see the conclusion.
HIGHLIGHT to view:
Also, the black guy dies. Again.

Whooooosh boom chk-chk-chk pew pew

that was great!

Awesome episode! I can't wait to see the ending!

The full version of "The Package" is up today. And god almighty is it hugging awesome. The action was absoultely perfect, especially with the FPS scenes that they threw in, and there was so much fanwank in the entire story it was unbelieveable.

Easily the best short so far.

Yeah, no competition. Easily the best short. Didn't try and reinvent anything, it had a plan, punctuating it with superb action sequences. I did let a teensy fanboy squeal out when Halsey called him "John". It was a little on the overly fanwanky side, their conversation, but I'm sure people ate it up.
I hope whatever is next up will be even half as entertaining and true to Halo as "The Package".

I loved seeing Kelly, Fred and Dr. H in another medium besides the books.

Dr H was pretty foxy for her age

WTF was up with those elites though? The big eyes, the tiny waists...and was the gold armoured Commander supposed to be Thel?

I'm intrigued by the red Major character, too. Wish we had names for them.

I always imagined Dr. H as older, and crazier looking....cant say iam disappointed tho

Yeah, they totally got her looking way too young there. This has to be set way in the past, as she should be the same age as Keyes (the dad in the first game, not the daughter from 2 & 3).

Well apparently in the 2500's technology helps keep you looking hotter and younger for longer. Such is the explanation on halo.bungie.org.

Captain Keyes and Lord Hood should have invested in some of that. Either that, or they're like in their 90's.

Sounds kind of lame.

That corridor bit was a bit wonky when they were firing away at nothing in particular.

Origins part 1 is up today, it's pretty good, never thought we'd see the Forerunners fight the Flood.

Pretty neat, but I was hopping to see the forerunners put up a better fight than that.

I really like how they dealt with the Forerunner's appearence by having them only shown with their armor on. That, and how they reseeded the galaxy. Can't wait for part 2.

I just realized that they totally omitted the forerunner shield worlds from this and said that the Forerunners were all dead. Maybe that will be in part two.

Man that episode today was just pure crap.

Art style and Animation made Armada look impressive, Voice acting was painful, and they cut the story in half!?! WTF? All it is a animated storyboard of one of the Halo Evolutions stories, and it isn't doing the awesome story justice. Definitely the worst of the lot so far.

What episode was this.

Today's isn't a "Halo Legends" anime episode. It's supposed to be an animated comic based on a story from Halo Evolutions. So it's not really fair to compare its animation etc to the Legends ep, because it's not supposed to be an anime, just an animated comic.

any comments on the new book? I jsut ordered it from amazon and ive got it coming to me soon, just tell me if its on par with Nylunds works or is this more like Cole Protocol and Harvest?

The new book is an anthology.

The beauty of it is, it's more like a buffet than like ordering just one thing. There's bound to be at least SOMETHING you will like, and the stories cater to a variety of tastes and interests.

Also, it's huge.

Huh, and i only played 10 bucks for it.

10 bucks for 500 some pages of content iam happy even if the story's are about Dr. Hasley filing her taxes.

I just watched Homecoming, Prototype, and Odd One Out.

Odd One Out: The humour of this was absolutely golden. It was so bad.

Prototype: Easily the visually-best of the shorts. It wasn't TOO depressing.

Homecoming: Utter jive. HIGHLIGHT to view:
DURR HURR LET'S KILL EVERYONE. And really, half a needler round? I'm expecting her to get back up five minutes later and bitch out her teammate for teasing her with a death pose. Seriously what the hell.

I've got my copy on the way from Amazon. I can't wait to watch it tomorrow!

The Package, Babysitter and Origins are really the only ones worth watching.
the one with spartan 1337 was kinda funny but i didnt really dig it too much.

Other than that i did not like the rest.