Some IGPX fanart for ya, in honor of the first Cartoon Network-produced Japanese animation (which wrapped up its first season earlier this month) ^_^

And now… you will have to FULL VIEW the deviation to know WTF I'm talking about below…

Takeshi×River and Liz×Amy are my fav pairings from the show, conveniently categorized as Satomi-shipping, since they're all pilots on Team Satomi (sorta following the Pokémon method of ship-naming here.. ^^) If I had to pick one over the other though to really qualify as One True-, I'd have to go with Liz×Amy. The damnedest thing about IGPX is Takeshi seems to get ALL the pairing possibilities, leaving everyone else high and dry. ^_^; In Season 1 alone, he has pairing potential with River, Liz, Cunningham, Fantine, Johnny (his little fan …who sounds like Tomoki XD), Yamma, The Rocket (one-sided), Sir Hangra (Season 2 speculation?), and Yuri (Takeshi's sister*, you knooow they were laying the evidence on real thick between those two..)

So yeah, Takeshi = Pimp'Masta Phenom. I had all but given up on Amy getting anyone (I was thinking Bjorn, who also has telepathic powers with his pet, and has the not-angsty!Crispin Freeman voice XD), but finally, in the second-to-last-episode, there were some major Liz×Amy hints and all was good again. You probably wonder why with all the het pairing evidence (namely the quirky Fantine/Takeshi/Liz love triangle) I had to zero in on a shounen-ai and shoujo-ai pairing. ^.~ The truth is I'm simply an "equal opportunity" shipper; straight, gay, or lesbo - I calls 'em likes I sees 'em, 'yo. I think if you ever checked my full list of supported pairings, you'd see all three categories seem to even out.

Nothing weird about it; that's… just how I roll. XD

(*Yes, as an equal-opportunity!shipper I DO condone sibling!shipping so long as it's done right. XD;; )

Yeah, would've been nice if I had added one of the mechs in the background (or try to make this picture remotely interesting), but I aaam pressed for time and this was mostly just a quick!musing piccie I had to get out. You hafta give props to Cartoon Network/Toonami for going ahead with sponsoring a show that was going to have same-sex implications (certainly at the same level as your average pre-teen Japanese animation)- it just shows an open-mindedness, which we can all use more of. ^~

(P.S. aaaaand, if you tell me my fav pairings go against canon, I will LAUGH AND LAUGH at j00)


Production I.G., Cartoon Network are owners of IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix and its characters:

(from left to right)
• River Marque (is voiced by the same person who does Jay in Tales of Legendia ^^)
• Takeshi Jin (is voiced by some guy named Haley Joel Osment. Perhaps you've heard of him.........)
• Liz Ricarro (is voiced by Michelle Rodriguez, up-and-coming movie actress; always good to have a new v/a in the mix~ not to mention a Latina character in a lead role of a Japanese animation- I think that's a first…!) O.o
• Amy Stapleton (is voiced by the same person who does Starfire XD; although currently it might be the person who voiced Rakka from Haibane Renmei ~ that's good too!)