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For many Western anime fans,Toonamiwas the gateway for viewers growing up in the 1990s and 2000s, withIGPX: Immortal Grand Prixbeing its first original anime production. The series featuresa unique blend of contact sports, racing, and mechaanime genres, resulting in a largely bloodless yet thrilling series of robotic roller derby-style clashes. While its origins lie in a 2003 microseries of five-minute installments constituting a total of less than twenty-five minutes runtime, the fullIGPX: Immortal Grand Prixseries began in earnest in 2005, an exciting collaboration between Cartoon Network and Production I.G.
WhileIGPX’smicroseries featured a tournament-style mecha action format, with a traditionally animated presentation jointly provided by Production I.G and Bee Train,responsible forMedabots, the full series was more clever and ambitious. Keen viewers may also have noticed some familiar voices in the English dub, with a cast list that’s continued to age well, featuring veteran star actors from television and film.IGPXonly lasted for two full seasons, totaling twenty-six full-length episodes.Still, for many fans in the mid-2000s, this was one of their earliest gateways to anime and a sign of things to come for American-Japanese collaboration.
IGPX Is a Racing Mech Anime with Incredible Animation
A Winning Combination of Crews and Directors for Toonami
WhileIGPX: Immortal Grand Prixis billed as a joint Cartoon Network and Production I.G anime, the animation and overall retooled 2005 series concept can easily be credited to Mitsuru Hongo’s veteran work, according toProduction I.G’s archived September 2005 interview. Thanks to Cartoon Network’s staff contributing to help make the series “more thrilling,“Hongo wished to change the focus from solely mecha action to racing and the mech sequences to change from 2D to 3D. Thanks to previous mecha anime projects, includingOutlaw StarandReideen,Hongo was a strong choice, praising his American counterparts' contributions.
What surprised me was that the communication with our US counterparts went very well, and, to tell you the truth, it was far easier to work on this project than some of the typical made-in-Japan anime I had made in the past.
-Mitsuru Hongo
This trend would hold nearly two decades later, with the recentTerminator Zeroseries being a collaboration between creator Mattson Tomlin, director Masashi Kudō, and Production I.G. When adapting science-fiction concepts with a uniquely Japanese flair and collaborating with American distributors, the studio has developed a pattern over the decades, with later examples likeFLCL. Production I.G’s visual fidelity and excellent film animation are an excellent fit for a seminal, bold mecha racing anime likeIGPX.
The 3D-CG visuals are isolated to the racetrack, providing a sleek presentation of the uniquely agile mechs capable of exceeding 350mph along a massive sixty-mile track inIGPX.But the animation is strong even off the track beyond each race’s dynamic and flowing action, along with fully-sanctioned inter-team interference, including mech-on-mech destruction. Viewers will note that each character inIGPX: Immortal Grand Prixhas a similarly weighty feel to its animation, in typical Production I.G fashion. This includes detail in martial arts katas, sword-fighting, and general motion, conferring authentic quality compared to other rushed anime of the era.
IGPX’s True Heart Was Its Characters
An Impressive Voice Cast Boosts Immortal Grand Prix’s Profile
On top of the English voice dub cast featuring Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) as protagonist Takeshi Jin, Michelle Rodriguez (The Fast and the Furious) as Elizabeth “Liz” Ricarro, and Hynden Welch (Teen Titans) as Amy Stapleton, the series featured other veteran voiceover talent.Mark Hamill, Tom Kenny, and even Peter Cullen, who also voiced the Toonami announcement blocks, feature prominently inIGPX: Immortal Grand Prix. With its Japanese voice cast including similarly excellent work by the late Emi Shinohara,IGPXhad a uniquely impressive roster of Western and Japanese talent.
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However,individual personalities were on full displaybeyond simply the voices behind the characters. Takeshi is a perfectly competitive protagonist for a racing anime, complete with a fragile ego, prodigious talents as a mech pilot, and playing video games with a specific focus on battling over socializing. Liz is a tomboyish character, frequently frustrated by Takeshi despite having a budding chemistry with him and having a tendency to wax philosophical between quoting Confucius and coining common sense phrases. Amy is perhaps the silliest of the trio, a genius able to synchronize with her cat while piloting her mech.
Amy’s cat, Luca, is modified with a cybernetic brain allowing the two to synchronize and communicate in their mech inIGPX.
IGPX: Immortal Grand Prixshowcases these characters as they play against often ruthless competitors. This occasionally means risking serious injuries and costly repairs, with the core team, Team Satomi, promoted from IG-2 to the ultra-competitive IG-1 scene. WhileIGPXis never truly high-stakes,viewers can easily enjoy the core group of characters as they face colorful and memorable opponentsvoiced by iconic voices of the 1990s and 2000s.
IGPX Paved the Way for Future Toonami & Adult Swim Original Anime
A Helping Hand in Popularizing Anime to Mainstream Youth Audiences
WhileIGPX’sanime is hailed even in its TV spots as the first Toonami original anime, it has spotty availability, with season 1 free to stream (with ads) onAdult Swim’s website, and season 2 seemingly only available in boxsets like the 2023 Blu-ray Complete Edition. Other merchandise, like the Volume #1 special edition, featured anIGPXt-shirt and the micro series pilot.This availability makes the anime a collector’s itemand a genuine piece of historycommemorating Toonami and Adult Swim content. The future that followed includes some incredible recent and upcoming projects.
IGPX has an indelible legacy as a signal for future accomplishments in American and Japanese broadcast collaboration.
While Toonami has long been a haven for excellent anime, includingCowboy Bebop, Space Dandy, and countless others, Adult Swim has shown an even brighter future for original programming followingIGPX’spioneering production. Recent shows likeRick and Morty: The Animeandthe long-awaitedUzumakianimeare already airing, but upcoming blockbuster projects include an excitingRooster Fighteradaptation, andLazarus, the latest Shinichiro Watanabe project.IGPX: Immortal Grand Prixmight now be a distant memory for some anime fans, but it has an indelible legacy as a signal for future accomplishments in American and Japanese broadcast collaboration.
