I play video games on occasion. One thing that always bugs me is when a subpar game has expertly animated trailers and cut scenes. “What a waste,” I inevitably think, “why don’t 3D animators use their talent to create badass standalone animation instead of cinematics for terrible games?”

Cat Shit One is what happens when a team does precisely that, and I couldn’t have been happier with the results. This morning, a feature length CG animated Tekken movie was announced, and I am unbelievably down.

I’ll go ahead and throw in the disclaimer now: I’m not good at video games, so I like the Tekken franchise for reasons which are totally unrelated to gameplay. I like the cast of characters, to the point where I own a full color guide to Tekken 6 though I only played it briefly on my PSP. I appreciate how Tekken’s cast spans multiple ethnicities without always going for a cheap stereotype. In addition, there are plenty of nods to cool stuff like Devilman and Blade Runner, and a pretty blatant ripoff of Retsu Kaioh, one of my favorite characters from Grappler Baki.

Spoiler alert: in the Grappler Baki manga, Retsu Kaioh has recently decided to become a professional boxer, despite the fact one of his legs was eaten off by an unfrozen prehistoric man. Seriously.

So when Dai Soto (Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex) churns out a script for an animated Tekken movie, and it’s directed by the guy who worked on the cinematics for the last few Tekken games, you bet I’m massively excited. And not in a “I guess more Berserk anime is coming eventually, someday, maybe” sort of way. This movie already has a September release date!

2011 continues to be a good year for anime.

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