IGPX Takes 20 Laps as Toonami’s First Original Anime (20th Anniversary Retrospective)

IGPX has reached the twenty-year milestone since its Toonami debut on November 5, 2005. This anime was the first of many Toonami originals. To this day, it is considered by many to be the best Toonami original ever. With a unique premise of mechanic racing teams. IGPX has captured a cult following.

The original plan for IGPX in the very early stages of the TOM3 era was a weekday micro-series directed by .hack//SIGN director Koichi Mashimo about combat mechanics. This event was broadcast in five short episodes, one per day – something like Genndy Tartakovsky’s Star Wars Clone Wars. Although this variant of IGPX has its fans, it was the prototype of what came later. It was a more traditional robot anime with no racing elements, similar to G Gundam, which was popular as a quasi-super robot anime at the end of TOM2/beginning of TOM3. Some of the characters originated here, but it’s a completely different beast from what was to come.

The full series is directed by Mitsuru Hongo, best known for directing Toonami’s seminal space bounty hunter space opera Star Wars, which paved the way for Adult Swim to air Cowboy Bebop. However, his work is somewhat inconsistent. His series Candidate for Goddess was localized as Pilot Candidate and heavily censored for a Y7 rating (despite having little offensive content and originally announced for Toonami) in Adult Swim’s early action lineup. This anime was often derided for its convoluted plot and early CGI. Pilot Candidate is widely considered one of Adult Swim Action’s lesser early series, disappearing after only a few runs in 2002.

Hongo’s unique blend of sci-fi futurism and characters made him a good partner for IGPX. Much of the series appeals to the episodes simply with relaxing music from Ninja Tune. At the time, it was rare for Toonami to choose a soundtrack for an anime. Although many anime that aired on Toonami around this time, such as Wulin Warriors and 4Kids One Piece, replaced the soundtracks, it was usually done by the dubbing company, not Toonami. Williams Street’s involvement in the production allowed Toonami to create two different versions tailored to specific markets: a Japanese version with a different score and tempo, and an American broadcast version.

Toonami has gone all out to make this series a hit. Promotional DVDs of the first episode were included in Nintendo Power and Anime Insider magazines. However, the show did not hold up against other fall 2005 light shows such as Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo. The main tragedy of IGPX is that it tried to be a very cool and character-driven show with angsty teenagers having relationships on and off the track. While Takeshi and Fantine’s romantic struggle or Takeshi’s rivalry with Cunningham and River were interesting and relatable to the teenage audience, kids who were used to fighting Shonen like Dragon Ball GT and One Piece at the end of the block didn’t stick with IGPX. Shows like this would best appeal to the 12-to-17-year-old audience that Toonami wanted to target but was not allowed to, despite Jim Sample’s initial promises that Saturday Toonami would be aimed at teenagers. Making the targeting of the old demo especially clear, the second season of IGPX is rated TV-PG-LV. Over time, the series featured an increasing amount of profanity, something that was almost never allowed on Cartoon Network outside of adult bathing hours. IGPX was one of countless TOM3 series to receive a partial run on Toonami. As Sam Register said of the 2003 cancellation of the beloved Teen Titans in the latest episode of Teen Titans Go, “The network wanted to go in a different direction” from teen-oriented programming. Instead, Cartoon Network made a series of futile attempts to move into live-action (Re-Animated) and girls’ programming (Totally Atomic) to compete with Nick and Disney.

While Naruto was able to survive and thrive in an era where CN didn’t care too much for old anime, IGPX suffered the same fate as Gundam Seed. Team Satomi was eventually sent to Friday night’s death spot alongside reruns of Dragon Ball Z’s Garlic Jr. Saga to end Liz, Takeshi and Amy’s second run for the IG-1 Championship. Toonami at least released an ad while doing it, which is more polite than .hack or Gundam shows ever got. Even though Gundam Seed and .hack//legend of the twilight bracelet have been running for two years on Friday nights, and IGPX for two months, IGPX was the only series to get a promotion in the anime block without the title pseudo-Toonami Midnight Run Friday night.

While the TOM3 era on Cartoon Network suffered from many bad decisions that hurt a great show, Toonami’s return to Adult Swim, which began with the legendary April Fool’s prank on April 1st, 2012, allowed IGPX to finally succeed. In the mid-2010s, Toonami first aired all episodes of IGPX in its new Adult Swim timeslot. Another attempt to air was made in 2023-2024 to promote a new Blu-ray set from Discotek. That broadcast, which began during the DST bonus hour two years ago, was pulled after one season, leaving the HD version of the second season as a Blu-Ray exclusive.

While IGPX certainly hasn’t had as much running time on Toonami as Shonen Jump titans like Naruto or One Piece, it’s been instrumental in establishing the connection between Production IG and Toonami. Toonami’s partnership with Japanese studios has led to many new anime projects, such as Uzumaki in Adult Swim era Toonami.

Did you enjoy the original run of IGPX on Toonami in 2005, or did you watch it on one of the later releases?

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