In the year 2049, the most popular sport in the world is
the IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix. Two teams
of three specialized racing mechs; 60 miles of track; speeds of up to
300mph. It’s a sport not for the feint
of heart and to the winner goes the ultimate glory. IG-2 Rookie sensastions Team Satomi have just
graduated to the next level, the IG-1, which give them a shot at taking a
championship win. But Takeshi, Liz and
Amy are the new kids on the block against Elites and Vetrans with far more
experience and their own style of racing.
If these three can learn to work together, they could enter the history
books as new legends of the IGPX.
After closing out the 8
th year of the Gundam
Anime Corner talking about Toonami history, it only seems right an important
chapter gets a full series review to open Year 9.
Created in 2005, IGPX serves as a
Co-Production between Cartoon Network and Production I.G., becoming the first
original Anime series exclusively made for Toonami.
That’s a lot of pressure to deliver as
collabs like this don’t happen very often (the only other I can think of is
Cartoon Network working with Studio Sunrise and Bandai to deliver a Second
Season of The Big O).
In terms of
presentation, IGPX comes ready to deliver with CG Animation for the main races
and some top notch voice talent.
It’s
come to play for sure but how is its first lap on the track?
The concept of the Immortal Grand Prix is great: Racing
mecha on a miles long track with chances to bash the heck out of each other
playing Rock Em, Sock Em Robots at speeds of nearly 300mph.
This feels like a sport that could exist in
the far future (and honestly should, it looks so cool).
The main track itself looks like it should be
a test track in a Sonic the Hedgehog game with plenty of corners and even
massive loops taller than most roller coasters.
The sport isn’t for the feint hearted though and we see plenty of times
where pilots bite off more than they can chew and their mechs pay the price for
it.
Going as fast as they do, damage is
inevitable, so it’s nice that pit crews can travel in support vehicles during
pauses in the race to repair anything needed.
Safety might not be garunteed but they try, though I wonder if anyone
has perished in an IGPX race.
The Mechs
look pristine, shiny and gorgeous.
The
Team Satomi’s stand out more than most teams for their diverse looks: Liz’s
Defender has the most armor while Amy’s Midfielder has the lightest for more
speed and Takeshi’s can be a hybrid of both as the Forward Leader.
Clearly there’s been a lot of through put into
this sport and the tools to make it happen, yet its very simple to understand.
Only downside to this opening set is that we
only see one full race in the first four episodes.
Two of them get cut short: one is a
cliffhanger for the end of this set and the other has its final moments shown
in news snippets.
Figured IGPX would
want to open bigger…though Team Satomi does tie in its first race instead of
winning, so that’s a change of pace.
Let’s talk about the team we’ll be following through the
show: Team Satomi.
Theyre the scrappy
underdogs who barely made it to the big leagues…and it kind of shows.
The three leads are friends but a team…it’s a
miracle they made it this far to be honest.
Most of the problems fall on Takeshi being the “Maverick” who loves to
go it alone and gets totally bummed when he loses a race to the point where you
think he just doesn’t care anymore.
It
paints him as kind of a brat and even his natural talent cant mask such
immaturity.
Liz is has both the hottest
head and the calmest mind.
She studies
Martial Arts and is prone to quoting Confucius a lot.
She’s got a cute design, beautiful and bad
ass as befitting her voice actress (we’ll talk about her later).
But when Takeshi messes up, she flips out and
berates him…shocking enough, it barely fazes him.
Then there’s Amy, who’s the most kind hearted
and intellectual of the trio.
She’s got
a brilliant mind for on the spot analysis of races and can communicate with her
cat, Luca, while inside her mech (no one else can talk with Luca though, wonder
how that works).
These wildly different
personalities clash as often as their Mechs against other teams on the track, a
lot of works gonna have to be done to show they are worthy of being a championship
worthy team.
Oh and Team Satomi also has a fourth racer named
River…who’s eternally on standby and is probably never gonna get a chance to
race because Takeshi is the main character and everyone makes excuses for
keeping him in play.
I kind of feel for
River.
We never get to see him partake
in any race with the others and is constantly being dismissed or ignored by
virtually everyone on the team (even Andre’s like “Oh you’re here?” when it’s
just him and River watching a race).
The
problem: yeah he’s got an attitude but he’s kind of in the right to have
one.
There’s nothing so far to show that
River is a jerk, he’s just not being given a chance to show he deserves to be
on the team.
So…as much as I sympathize…why
is River even around?
The supporting
cast feels stacked already with Miss Satomi as Team Manager, Andre as the
Coach, Mark as Mechanic and Jesse…as moral support I guess?
I don’t know, next to River I have a hard
time placing Jesse’s role in the crew.
I
get the feeling River’s only gonna take but so much before he just leaves Team
Satomi for another team for the chance to race…and honestly I wouldn’t blame
him.
This voice cast though, wow.
For a Mid 2000’s Anime, Toonami went in big
time to get some Grade A talent outside of the Anime VA community to help with
IGPX.
In addition to Steve Blum (Cowboy
Bebop, Toonami’s Tom) as Cunningham and Kari Wahlgren (FLCL) as Luca, you’ve
got: Haley Joel Osment (Kingdom Hearts) as Takeshi; Michelle Rodriguez (The
Fast and the Furious) as Liz; Lance Henricksen (Aliens) as Andre, Mark Hamil
(Star Wars) as Yama; and Spongebob Squarepants himself, Tom Kenny as Sportscaster
Benjamin Bright.
That is beyond solid
and everyone brings their best to these roles.
Rodriguez and Henriksen stand out the most to me.
Like I said above, Liz feels like a character
inspired by the Fast and Furious actress: beautiful, tough, bad ass and very
caring all at once (I wonder if she also practices Martial Arts too).
Henricksen has got a voice that instills
wisdom and snark that has made his entire career since he was the Android
Bishop in Aliens.
Everyone else is on
point too, and you can always count on vets like Hamill, Blum and Wahlgren to
give great performances.
I should note that there are two versions of IGPX out
there: The Toonami Version and the Production I.G. Version.
I’m going to be watching the Production I.G.
Edit because I think it’s the purest form of the show.
Even if it was made for it specifically, some
language does find its way into IGPX and that had to be cut out for Toonami’s broadcast.
Also, Toonami’s version also included much of
the original music made for the block.
The
Production I.G. cut includes new original pieces as well as an actual OP and ED
that are both pretty cool: The OP “Go For It” is a nice head banging blood pumper
and “Believe Yourself” is a soothing cool down from all the action.
The Toonami broadcast just had one of
Toonami’s custom quick intros and outros.
It’s been a long time since I watched IGPX on Toonami so for this
review, don’t expect a lot of comparisons between Cuts beyond what I’m
mentioning here (if any).
I just wanted
to be clear about which version I’ll be reviewing.
All in all, IGPX has got the stuff needed to make a great
Anime series: simple but very fun and unique premise, a great voice cast and a
rare nice blend of 2D and 3D CG Animation.
The characters can be too numerous and kind of a handful but maybe
that’ll get sorted in the episodes to come.
We’ll see if Lap 2 goes any better for the show come Monday when IGPX
continues right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.
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