For many Western anime fans, Toonami was the gateway for viewers growing up in the 1990s and 2000s, with IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix being its first original anime production. The series features a unique blend of sports, racing, and mecha anime 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 full IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix series began in earnest in 2005, an exciting collaboration between Cartoon Network and Production I.G.

While IGPX's microseries featured a tournament-style mecha action format, with a traditionally animated presentation tly provided by Production I.G and Bee Train, responsible for Medabots, 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. IGPX only 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

While IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix is billed as a t 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 to Production 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, including Outlaw Star and Reideen, 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 recent Terminator Zero series 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 like FLCL. Production I.G's visual fidelity and excellent film animation are an excellent fit for a seminal, bold mecha racing anime like IGPX.

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 in IGPX. 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 in IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix has 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 in IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix. With its Japanese voice cast including similarly excellent work by the late Emi Shinohara, IGPX had a uniquely impressive roster of Western and Japanese talent.

However, individual personalities were on full display beyond 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 in IGPX.

IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix showcases 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. While IGPX is never truly high-stakes, viewers can easily enjoy the core group of characters as they face colorful and memorable opponents voiced 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

While IGPX's anime 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) on Adult 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 an IGPX t-shirt and the micro series pilot. This availability makes the anime a collector's item and a genuine piece of history commemorating Toonami and Adult Swim content. The future that followed includes some incredible recent and 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, including Cowboy Bebop, Space Dandy, and countless others, Adult Swim has shown an even brighter future for original programming following IGPX's pioneering production. Recent shows like Rick and Morty: The Anime and the long-awaited Uzumaki anime are already airing, but blockbuster projects include an exciting Rooster Fighter adaptation, and Lazarus, the latest Shinichiro Watanabe project. IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix might 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.

Sources: Production I.G, IGPX on Adult Swim