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Immortal Grand Prix

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IGPX (short for Immortal Grand Prix) refers to two anime series produced by Cartoon Network and Production I.G. The first is a "microseries" consisting of five 5-minute episodes. The second is an apparently loosely related 26-episode animated series.

Production I.G writes, directs, and animates the series, while Bandai Entertainment acts as the North American distributor. The series' production is managed by Williams Street in Atlanta, Georgia. Bang Zoom! Entertainment in Burbank, California produces the English dub for the series.

At E3 2006, it was announced that an IGPX video game is set to be released in October 2006 for the Sony Playstation 2.

Contents

IGPX Microseries

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Premiering in summer 2003, this series - the length of a single episode of normal animation - shows the trials of an amateur mecha gladiator team which enters the "Immortal Grand Prix" championships on a lucky chance.

Cartoon Network teamed up with the highly acclaimed Production I.G (Ghost in the Shell, anime segments in Kill Bill and T-Mobile's Sidekick ad starring Johnny Chase) to produce and create the network's first fully original anime series which premiered during the popular Toonami block.

The series consisted of five episodes, each 5 minutes long, and were a part of Toonami's Total Immersion Event (TIE) which ran each day from Sept. 15 - Sept. 19, 2003. Past TIEs had included Toonami host TOM, but in 2003 Cartoon Network decided to go in a different direction with this series by developing an original anime series.

IGPX takes place in 2049 where Team Satomi and Team Sledge Mamma are preparing to meet in the final round of the 12th Immortal Grand Prix (IGPX). Takeshi leads Team Satomi, which is made-up of a group of young amateur pilots who must make the most of their limited funds and weaponry in order to prepare for the competition designed for professionals. Team Sledge Mamma consists of three professional, cybernetic opponents who are known to be merciless and have remained undefeated throughout this year's competition. Though Team Satomi manages to beat Sledge Mamma, the microseries ends with a cliffhanger, with Sir Hamgra trying to force Team Satomi to merge with Team Velshtein and receive cyberbrain implants.

Each IGPX battle matches two teams with 3 mechas, high tech fighting machines. Utilizing any form of weaponry within the regulated weight limit, the pilots of these fighting machines must defeat all of the Mechs belonging to the opposition. The pilots are protected from injury during battle in a Hide Shell. Once a Mech is significantly damaged during competition, the Hide Shell is ejected. After achieving 12 victories in previous rounds, two teams advance to the championship competition.

[CartoonNetwork.com] unveiled an all-new IGPX game to coincide with the on-air event. Sponsored by the PlayStation 2 game Jak II, it was a tactical fighting game that placed fans in the driver's seat of a team of three IGPX mobile fighters. After successfully defeating one of the IGPX teams, registrants received either a Team Satomi or Team Sledge Mamma Orbit cRing.

Team Satomi

Name: Takeshi Noa (IGPX Pilot) Age: 14 (Joshua Seth, Haley Joel Osment in the first season)
Name: Liz Ricarro (IGPX Pilot) Age: 15 (Kari Wahlgren under the alias Jennifer Jean)
Name: Amy Stapleton (IGPX Pilot) Age: 13 (Sandy Fox)
Name: Luca (Feline) Age: Unknown (Julie Maddalena)
Name: Suzaku (Team Owner) Age: Unknown (Michelle Ruff)
Name: U-Matsu (Mechanic) Age: 26 (Kirk Thornton under the alias Sean Roberts)
Name: Himawari (IGPX Medic) Age: 14 (Julie Maddalena)

Team Sledge Mamma

Name: Yammer (IGPX Pilot) Age: 22 (Beau Billingslea under the alias John Daniels)
Name: Timmer (IGPX Pilot) Age: 23 (Michael McConnohie)
Name: Dimmer (IGPX Pilot) Age: 24 (Steve Kramer)

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

IGPX TV Series

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The IGPX TV series made its hour-long premiere on Saturday, November 5, 2005, at 10:00PM. This series appears to revolve around an "Immortal Grand Prix", which is a mecha racing/battle circuit.

In the regular series, the year is 2049 and the Immortal Grand Prix has become the world’s most-popular sport. It’s so big that an entire city was built for the racing industry where competitions take place on a huge, 60-mile track. In the Immortal Grand Prix, two teams of three mechas, high-tech fighting machines driven by humans, race at speeds greater than 350 mph. While it has transformed from a battle event to a race in the intervening 2 years since the microseries, the Immortal Grand Prix retains ties to its fighting roots, as attacking the opposing team in order to disable their mechas (thus preventing them from winning the race) is not only legal, but also expected. Team Satomi, a crew of amateur pilots, has just won a minor-league championship, the IG-2, vaulting them into the sport’s highest level, the IG-1. Now, the untested rookies of Team Satomi must overcome impossible odds and beat the world’s most skilled and ruthless pilots in the planet’s biggest event, the Immortal Grand Prix.

Rules of the IGPX

An IGPX race consists of two teams of three pilots: a forward (usually places first or second), a midfielder (usually places third or fourth), and a defender (usually places fifth or sixth). They compete on a 60-mile track, going at speeds upwards of 350 mph. The overall objective is to make it to the finish line and accumulate more points then the opponent. 1st place receives 15 points; 2nd receives 7 points; 3rd gets 5 points; 4th gets 3 points; 5th gets 2 points and 6th gets 1 point. No points are awarded to pilots who are unable to finish the race. Lap one is basically a setting up lap. Teams set up their positions on the track. In the second lap, also known as the Battle Round, the teams now fight their way to the finish line. Also, the pit machines, also known as the Running Skeletons, are only employed during this lap. In the third lap, pilots are allowed to set their mechs into speed mode. Speed mode allows the mech to achieve maximum speed, and make a quick sprint to the finish line.

Team Satomi

Team Satomi is a crew of young rookies who have just won the minor league IG-2 Championship and are now entering the big leagues as an IG-1 team. Can this young and inexperienced group actually achieve the impossible dream to go from complete obscurity to winning in the most popular sport in the world - the IGPX? Yes. Position: Forward
Nationality: Japan
Age: 15 years old
Gender: Male
Height: 172cm
Weight: 56kg
As Team Satomi's forward, Takeshi is a gifted pilot who frequently butts heads with his fellow team members, but they all recognize his undeniable talent. Takeshi seems to take nothing seriously, but beneath his carefree exterior lies a fierce competitor determined to win. He certainly has the skills to succeed, if he can only stop thinking of himself for a minute. He also has a younger sister named Yuri, who loves teasing her brother, and barging in on him without asking, though it is obvious that she loves her big brother dearly and she claims to be his biggest fan and supporter. Takeshi also looks to his idol, a famous IGPX pilot known as "The Rocket" as a source of inspiration. The Rocket is later revealed to be team Satomi's coach Andrei Rublev. He is known as Takeshi Jinno in the Japanese version. Takeshi is now an item with Fantine Valjean, however, in season 2, they broke up. Fantine realized that Takeshi and Liz have feelings for each other and thought of Takeshi as a friendly rival rather than a boyfriend. Position: Midfielder
Nationality: Ireland
Age: 13 years old
Gender: Female
Height: 152cm
Weight: 43kg
A child prodigy, Amy is Team Satomi's Midfielder and battle tactitian. She synchronizes with her cybernetically enhanced cat, Luca (Kari Wahlgren), to form a composite personality during IGPX Races. Quiet and unassuming, Amy will often patch up conflicts between other team members, but her sweetness belies her considerable combat abilities. In season 2, Amy is suspended from racing after her mech is damaged in Satomi's race against White Snow. Andrei replaces her for both Velshtein vs Satomi and Skylark vs Satomi matches. Position: Defender
Nationality: Puerto Rico
Age: 16 years old
Gender: Female
Height: 169cm
Weight: 50kg
An orphan whose only family is her teammates and her coaches, Liz is Team Satomi's defender and a ferocious opponent. Often loud and obnoxious, she generally behaves like a tomboy. Liz is one of the more dedicated members of the team, living and breathing nothing but IGPX. Takeshi's devil-may-care attitude infuriates her, but she cares for him deeply. She's also a highly trained martial artist, always practicing her Kung Fu. Position: Team supervision and owner
Nationality: Japan
Age: 24 years old
Gender: Female
Michiru Satomi is the granddaughter of the chairman of Satomi Heavy Industries. Her family allows her to manage Team Satomi in the faint hope that she can turn this failing franchise into a success story. Michiru may be young, but she is a hard worker and knows she has a special team, including a one-in-a-million pilot like Takeshi. Position: Mechanic
Nationality: Japan
Age: 26 years old
Gender: Male
Mark is one of the best IGPX mechanics in the game, and he's in it for the love of his craft. He's actually the heir to the Hiratake Conglomerate, the world's largest investment banking group, though he keeps it a closely guarded secret. Mark may care more about his beautiful machines than the team's pilots. Position: Coach
Nationality: Russia
Age: 45 years old
Gender: Male
The coach of Team Satomi. Andrei practices an almost "zen" coaching style, in which he appears to be doing very little and motivates the team primarily with cryptic comments and instructions. The other team members do not know about Andrei's past prior to his joining team Satomi, apparently as a result of Andrei's contracts with unknown persons, but a promise that Andrei makes to Takeshi suggests that he could have connections with or be the Rocket. It was recently revealed that he is actually the Rocket himself and it was also hinted through a photograph seen at the end that Andrei, as the Rocket, possibly raced with Sir Hamgra of Team Velshtein. Position: Assistant
Age: 19 years old
Nationality: Japan
Gender: Female
The peppy one, Jesse is Miss Satomi's assistant. She's always the one to cheer up her fellow members of Team Satomi when they're sad. Once, when Miss Satomi talked about dropping out of the race between Team Satomi and Team Velshtein after Amy got sent to the hospital in the White Snow race, Jesse was the one to convince her otherwise, inspiring Andrei to temporarily replace Amy as Midfielder.

Team Velshtein

The members of Team Velshtein were last year's IGPX champions, having upset Sledge Mamma last year in the IG-1 of 2048. Velshtein's roster is Alex Cunningham AKA:The Ghost (Forward) (Steve Blum), Jan Michael (Midfielder) (Dave Wittenberg), and Dew (Defender) (Lex Lang). Their coach is Sir Hamgra (Kim Strauss), who was also responsible for the Rocket's success. The Velshtein mechs are also specially designed to discharge a pulse that disrupts the air pressure and creates a high voltage tornado. This attack has been named the Indoraga Mano or Ace up the Sleeve. In the second season, the move was made illegal by the IGPX League. Their mechs are also capable of gliding short distances due to small wing-like extensions which are usually retracted. Aside from that, they are extremely skilled pilots, with mechs that have immense reserves of strength for conventional combat!

Team Sledge Mamma

The team that frequently dominates the IGPX, Sledge Mamma is made up of Yamma (Mark Hamill), Timma (Dave Wittenberg), Dimma (Andre Ware), three legendary pilots who are 10-year veterans as well as notoriously ruthless fighters, plus former Satomi team member and rookie River Marque (Steve Staley). River joins the team because he wants the chance to challenge Takeshi and to play as Forward, a chance he could not get on Team Satomi. The team despises the young upstarts of Team Satomi and will stop at nothing to put the rookies in their place on the field.

Recent developments have shown that Yamma holds a dislike for Takeshi because of his similarities to Alex Cunningham. Yamma has also been revealed to be the oldest pilot in the IG-1, second only to Andrei during his brief return while Amy was out with an injury.

Team Sledge Mamma apparently draws the line at cheating off the field, and once helped protect Team Satomi from an attack by overzealous Sledge Mamma fans.

Team Sledge Mamma's mechs are armed with detachable fists connected by wires, which allows them to attack enemy mechs from a distance.

Team Black Egg

The team from Argentina that has a very distinct racing style: They place emphasis on defense rather than offense, preferring agility, smokescreens, and similar tactics to avoid attacks and concentrate on racing. Since the IGPX is descended from a battle sport, this strategy completely bowls over most teams. Their pilots are: Ricardo Montazio (Forward), Grant McKain (Midfielder) and Glass Jones (Defender). They unfortunately placed fifth last year. Finishing last place in Season 1 lead to their demotion to the IG-2. Their place in the IG-1 is filled by a team promoted from the IG-2, Team White Snow. Their mechs are equipped with hologram projecters and smokescreens.

Team Edgeraid

From Switzerland, Edgeraid is a team based on teamwork. Their lead pilot Bjorn Johannsen (Crispin Freeman) is the only other pilot aside from Amy to have an animal copilot. Bjorn's animal copilot is Sola (Wendee Lee) the dog, and just like Luca, has her own commercial for dogfood. Edgeraid's defender is Frank Bullit (Dave Wittenberg), and their midfielder is Bella DeMarco (Stephanie Sheh), who has an affinity for piercings as well as romantic/lustful feelings towards rival pilot Takeshi Jin. Edgeraid mechs are equipped with arms that shoot out thin, nearly invisible wires, which they use to manipulate their opponents and to throw each other around the track. Edgeraid's speciality is the Edge Monsoon.

Team Skylark

The all-female team from France. The team forward, Fantine Valjean (Karen Strassman), seems to be attracted to Takeshi. Takeshi and Fantine were in a relationship starting at Episode 7 and ending at Episode 19 when Fantine and Takeshi broke up before the Season 2 Satomi-Skylark race. Team Skylark's machines have all been designed to maximize drafting techniques. The Skylark mechs are more of the aggressive melee type where team members Elisa Doolittle (Michelle Ruff) and Jessica Darlin (Kate Higgins) help protect team forward Fantine Valjean and use their special attack to take the lead after expending minimal energy for most of the race. Their mechs don't possess any kind of special weaponry or equipment except extremely fast-moving arms, so the pilots focus mainly on their combat prowess. Their drafting techniques may also be out of necessity for their mech's safe handling, since Fantine's mech overheated during their first match with Team Satomi after trading blows with Takashi for an extended period.

Team White Snow

This team replaces Team Black Egg in Season 2 after Black Egg finished in last place during the first season. They started in the same place as Team Satomi did in Season 1, coming up from the IG-2 to take a crack at becoming IG-1 champions. Team White Snow is composed of Zanak Strauss, Judy Balestero, and Max Erlich. In their first match against Satomi, they score a resounding victory by taking control of the Satomi mechs and forcing them to attack each other. Amy's mech ends up being destroyed from the waist down by a kick from above by Takeshi controlled by Zanak. Amy is sent to the hospital, and is suspended from the next 2 races: Satomi vs Velshtein and Satomi vs Skylark. Team White Snow also has the tendency to sabotage or spy on Team Satomi by hacking into their computer systems. Their mechs have the ability to hack into enemy mechs and take total control of their systems, though this requires physical contact with the other mech.

Benjamin Bright

As the "voice of IGPX" announcer, Benjamin Bright (Tom Kenny) has become world famous for his color commentary on the sport. He slowly develops a grudging appreciation for the untested rookies of Team Satomi. Though never seen in person, Bright can often be seen giving race commentary and IGPX news on the various public TV screens scattered around the city and on the trademark blimp that hovers above the track.

Episodes

Season 1

Beginning November 5, 2005

  1. Time To Shine
  2. Win or Lose
  3. Black Egg
  4. The Ghost
  5. Come Together
  6. Cat vs. Dog
  7. Spring has Come
  8. I Like You, I Like You, I Love You
  9. Holiday
  10. Showdown
  11. And Then...
  12. The Final Battle
  13. Into Tomorrow

Season 2

Beginning May 20, 2006

  1. A New Challenge
  2. Feeling Lost
  3. Vulnerable Mind
  4. White Snow
  5. Puzzled
  6. Moving On
  7. Comeback
  8. Decision
  9. To The Place Meant To Be
  10. Fate
  11. Winner's Circle
  12. Hostile Contradiction
  13. The End and the Beginning

Team Satomi Race Record

2049
Race--------------------------------------------------Winner
Satomi vs Sledge Mamma-------------------------------Tie
Satomi vs Black Egg--------------------------------Satomi
Satomi vs Velshtein--------------------------------Velshtein
Satomi vs Edgeraid---------------------------------Satomi
Satomi vs Skylark-----------------------------------Satomi
Satomi vs Sledge Mamma----------------------------Satomi
Satomi vs Velshtein---------------------------------Satomi

2050
Race--------------------------------------------------Winner
Satomi vs Edgeraid---------------------------------Satomi
Satomi vs White Snow---------------------------White Snow
Satomi vs Velshtein-----------------------------------Tie
Satomi vs Skylark--------------------------------Satomi
Satomi vs Sledge Mamma-----------------------------Satomi
Satomi vs Velshtein--------------------------------Satomi
Satomi vs White Snow-----------------------------------Satomi

Trivia

"This piece of crap!"
"What the hell's going on?"
"Go to hell."
"Let's kick some ass!"
"You called me up here just to hear you bitch?"
"Damnit!"
"You're on the wrong frickin' page!"
"Now I'm pissed!"
This is a contributing factor to the higher content rating. Also, some episodes have the TV-PG-L rating, making IGPX the first Toonami exclusive to have that rating, and the only show on the entire network (Adult Swim is considered a seperate channel) to have that rating.

IGPX Promotions

Sources

Theme songs

Japan and U.S. Special edition DVD release

Opening Ending

External links

 

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