The Creator of Super Mario Made a Bunch of Short Films

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Japanese Ninento artist and game designer Shigeru Miyamoto is pictured in London, on October 21, 2008.
Japanese Nintendo artist and game designer Shigeru Miyamoto is pictured in London, on October 21, 2008.Carl De Souza—AFP/Getty Images
By Nolan Feeney

He’s created some of the most famous video games of all time, and now Shigeru Miyamoto is doing some film work — naturally, based off of Nintendo characters.

Miyamoto, who’s been instrumental in creating franchises such as The Legend of Zelda and Donkey Kong and was a 2007 TIME 100 honoree, has produced PIKMIN Short Movies, a set of three 3-D short films that will premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival this year, the festival announced Thursday.

The miniature plant-animal hybrids known as Pikmin made their debut in a 2001 game for the Nintendo GameCube, and the series has grown to include two follow-ups, the most recent of which came out last year for Nintendo’s Wii U console. The film series follows the Pikmin and the alien astronaut Captain Olimar, the game’s main character who will work with his tiny friends to explore the world, hunt for treasure and… make natural juices out of natural ingredients.

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Write to Nolan Feeney at nolan.feeney@time.com