Fans of the tiny plant people game series are getting some excitement today as new "Pikmin" short films are set to debut at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Given the amount of possible distributors that will attend the festival, the debut could possibly lead to video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto entering the world of TV, with his own "Pikmin" television series. It will of course depend on how people respond to the films.

"I didn't want to license our characters out to someone else to create films. Instead, since I used to draw four-panel comics when I was younger, I thought it would be fun to bring a four-panel comic approach to creating video content, so we started work on these Pikmin videos," says Shigeru Miyamoto in a recent interview with Polygon. The popular Nintendo video game designer spoke to the publication about his upcoming "Pikmin" short films which are set to debut at this year's Tokyo International Film Festival.

According to A.V. Club, "The project, which is computer animated and will be shown in 3D, is made up of three episodes." They go on to say that Miyamoto will be joined by Nobuo Kawakami, the head of a Japanese kind of Youtube called Niconico in a post-screening Q&A. The official Tokyo International Film Festival site explains the shorts the concept of the "Pikman" shorts: "Pikmin come out from their game world and appear in a CG animation film. This omnibus film contains three short episodes: 'The Night Juicer,' in which Captain Olimar makes his favorite juice; 'Treasures in a Bottle,' in which Pikmin meet a strange treasure; 'Occupational Hazards,' a big adventure at a construction site."

Film festivals are notorious for opportunities to pick up distribution that may have been previously unavailable. It's possible that Nintendo and Miyamoto may take the "Pikman" shorts and turn them into a TV cartoon series. According to Polygon, Miyamoto stated that, "the company also hasn't decided if they'll expand their foray into cartoons by creating series for other Nintendo characters." This at least means that the possibility is on their minds.

Here's hoping a big enough distribution offer is made so that "Pikmin" fans around the world can get to experience the newest adaptation of the world of the plant people. In the mean time, fans can check out "Pikmin 3" on the Wii U console.